Sabri Lamouchi vented his frustration at Cardiff City's sloppy defending at the beginning and end of a pulsating South Wales derby which saw Swansea City earn a last-gasp 3-2 victory.
Lamouchi's men went behind early due an extremely soft goal which saw Joel Piroe skin Mark McGuinness and Cedric Kipre before hammering it into the roof of the net.
And then, the goal which ultimately consigned them to defeat was a comedy of errors, deep into stoppage time to boot. Kipre brought down Jamie Paterson on the edge of the Cardiff box, which was a poor foul to concede. Jay Fulton's shot then pinged off the post before falling to Joel Latibeaudiere, whose miscued shot dropped to Ben Cabango who rifled it into the roof of the net.
In between those two goals, bookending the match, Cardiff showed some fight and determination and looked to have secured a point through Jaden Philogene and Sory Kaba goals. It wasn't to be, though, and Lamouchi bemoaned those two bad moments which ultimately drop the Bluebirds further into the relegation mire.
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"I can complain about the scenario," Lamouchi said after the derby defeat.
"When you start the game this way and when you finish the game this way, you can be upset, disappointed, complain, maybe, because maybe we paid the price for some mistakes in the beginning, one or two goals, easy.
"We can't concede this foul. We can't concede this goal in the last minute. So no complaints. Just a cruel scenario.
"Five goals in a derby is a lot of goals. Unfortunately it was not in our favour. We came back into the game with a fantastic goal from Jaden before the break. It was a chance to come back into the game with a different mentality and a different quality. We pressed them a little bit better. With no mistake at the beginning in the second.
"Kaba scored another goal and I was thinking it was an important goal, but we finished as you know. Over 95 minutes, we need to keep the ball, put the ball away, the small details. I said to the players before the game and at the end.
"I can't complain about the desire to come back into the game, but we need to play with the same mentality and desire to keep the result. Because one point is one point."
More than 28,000 supporters were packed into Cardiff City Stadium on Saturday afternoon, the most of Lamouchi's tenure.
The atmosphere was rocking when Kaba scored that equaliser, which made it all the more disappointing when Cabango sucked the air out of the stadium with only seconds left.
"It was the best atmosphere since my beginning," the Bluebirds boss added. "Unfortunately, a lot came and they are probably, like all of us, very disappointed, upset by the result and the scenario.
"But they supported the players until the third goal. It was unbelievable from them."
It's been a cocktail of disappointment for Cardiff this weekend. Firstly, their case to have the Rotherham United game restarted with the team's 1-0 lead intact was waved away by the EFL, then relegation rivals Huddersfield shocked everyone with a 4-2 win over promotion-chasing Middlesbrough and, of course, worst of all, they lost to their bitter rivals in the 99th minute of a derby.
Lamouchi, though, must lift these players' heads up, because they have bottom-three side Blackpool coming up on Good Friday and with the Terriers' win over Boro seeing Cardiff out of the relegation zone only on goal difference. The Bluebirds, though, do have a game in hand.
On the task of keeping his players' spirits high, Lamouchi added: "It's hard for me. But, trust me, it's hard for the players. They tried to find the right words to keep their heads up, but it's not easy.
"The atmosphere in the locker room is absolutely different than the opponent's locker room."
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