The final whistle was greeted by boos by a small section of the frustrated home support on Tuesday night but Manning is convinced the tide will turn after consecutive home losses to Millwall, Middlesbrough and now the Saints.
“We have to stick together. We can’t afford to over-react. We have to understand we have 43 league games to play. I guarantee the team will improve and progress over time,” he said. “We had two wins last week, two defeats this week and you have to use that to become better. How do we become more streetwise?
“A tough evening. Given the volume of changes we made I thought we pressed well. I thought we got into some really good areas, played depth well, and then very similar to Middlesbrough one sloppy moment and we are 1-0 down. But also a fantastic finish from them, and that can happen with this level of opposition.
“Frustrated at half-time because we knew we had produced some good moments. But I didn’t like how we finished the game. Just the intensity going until the end needs to be better. That is maybe physical but also in terms of we have to be tougher.
“Not just when we talk about running and duels but with the ball and being smarter in transition and how we break play up in and around their box. We can’t get into those areas the amount of times we did and don’t score. We have to be more clinical. They didn’t create tonnes of chances but we lost 3-0.
“I’m always honest with the players. Naturally if you lose 3-0, and I hate losing, you have to let them know but you also have to be realistic in your reflections. There are elements of the lads chasing how we perform.
“The structure is better, how we press is better, how we deal with long balls is better but we go too quickly from high level moments to really bottom moments. We have to raise that lower bar. I want to make sure when we are not at it we are tough to beat and we are pragmatic and don’t give the opposition anything.”
The City chief spoke exclusively to the Pinkun on Tuesday night at Carrow Road.