Roy Keane is a man under pressure – and not afraid to admit it.

The Ipswich boss has presided over four defeats in a row, and the groans from the terraces suggest the fans are far from impressed.

Word is the powers-that-be at Portman Road aren't in the mood for change just yet, but Keane has been around long enough to know that opinions can change overnight.

'I think we've heard that from clubs before about managers and the next day they're gone,' he said. 'I take any comments that might come out with a pinch of salt. When you are losing matches it creates pressure. But that's the pressure of the job. You know that when you come into it, and that's it, you have got to deal with it.

'I analyse my own performances every single day – whether we are getting the best out of players. Obviously we tried to bring certain players in during the summer, that didn't happen, but that's history. We just have to focus on our next game - and it is certainly not going to get any easier.'

It's not the first time Keane has found life tough in Suffolk.

'It was pretty tough last year when we didn't win for, what, 14 or 15 games,' he said. 'But obviously the expectation this year was it was going to be better.

'I analyse my position every single day, whether we have won three or four or lost one or two, whatever it might be, and that doesn't change. But we have got to try and turn things around and it is not going to get any easier.

'We have got West Brom (in the Carling Cup) on Wednesday and you saw the team today. I think our starting XI was pretty strong. I've been saying the last two months we've had too many young players. I think it was an experienced team today – but going down to 10 men made it very, very hard for us.

'Norwich are a good team in good form and they punished us.'

Defensive errors proved costly for Keane, not just in terms of goals conceded but by contributing to Damien Delaney's red card before half-time for halting Holt's progress to goal.

'It doesn't matter what I think of the sending off, to be fair,' said Keane. 'Let's not waste our time and energy talking about was there cover, did he actually pull him back; the ball should have been cleared, simple as that.

'Same for the first goal, so I am not going to sit here and question the officials. I think there has been enough of that over the last few weeks with other managers and obviously other countries.

'It was a long afternoon. Once again gifting teams a helping hand and poor decision making has cost us. It was a long second half, of course. We had to get back into it, took a bit of a gamble in the last 15, 20 and of course we opened the door then to concede more goals.'

Town's defensive issues clearly need to be resolved quickly if their slide is to be stopped.

'In any game of football, whether you are a professional or whether you are an amateur, you have got to do the basics right and we didn't do that today, whether it be for the first coupe of goals or the sending off,' Keane said. 'You make it very hard for yourselves.

'At 2-1, even though we gifted two goals away I think we were very much in the game. It was pretty open and they were causing us problems, but I just thought we'd be okay, and then came the sending off not long before half-time – three important decisions in the first half, I'm talking about the two goals and the sending off.

'We're not good enough to be giving away goals like that and to be playing with 10 men. We haven't won the last few games with 11. With 10 it was not impossible – we tried to keep it tight and just try and nick something on the break or the set-piece and it wasn't to be.

'You have got to tackle and get stuck in. Okay, it was hard when we were down to 10 men because Norwich kept the ball going well, the boy (David) Fox is a good player, we knew that anyway.

'It was a gamble we took when it was 2-1 we dropped back a little bit and tried to soak up the pressure, but it is not as if we're on a good run of form ourselves, so to go from 11 to 10 and losing a centre-half as well we had to shuffle. We then missed Jack (Colback) in midfield – a massive knock-on effect and it's not long before half-time.

'So you go into our dressing room and theirs at half-time – they've got the lead and they know they are going to put us under a lot of pressure, a lot of balls in the box, and they're pretty good at that anyway, even if we had 11.

'So a tough afternoon all round for everybody.'