Hamilton Accies skipper Brian Easton says the responsibility for Saturday's "embarrassing" defeat to Morton falls solely on the players after John Rankin's side were hammered 5-0 at Cappielow.
The game was out of sight inside 23 minutes when goals from Jack Baird, Jaze Kabia and Grant Gillespie gave them a mountain to climb and in the second half a double from Robbie Muihead compounded their misery.
Accies have picked up just one win in nine games in the Championship this season and a point above bottom side Arbroath.
And Easton blasted their latest performance and said he and his team-mates must should the responsibility for the heavy defeat.
He said: "We never got started but then somehow we got worse.
“Listen, it all falls on the players on that pitch. The manager can’t do any more, everything he works on all week is spot on, he puts the work in.
“At half-time he goes through us and rightly so and we don’t get a reaction.
“This was one of the most embarrassed I’ve ever been on a football park because we made it so easy for them and there was no real fight from anyone.
“Once we went down we went into our shells and that’s so disappointing.
“The boys have got to show character to turn this around. We have to bounce back.
“It’s about when things aren’t going for you, having a bit of character and stepping up.
“You might get a goal against you but that’s when you need to roll your sleeves up and, to be honest, here it was nowhere near that from anyone in the team. That’s what was so disappointing.
“There was no reaction and that’s not Hamilton Accies.
“The Hamilton I know and grew up with was boys with fight and us as players need to step up to the plate really quickly.
“This has to be a wake up call. If we don’t get a rocket and really understand we need to get going there’s a problem.
“There’s a mentality thing come matchdays, we need to realise it’s professional football and we need to get going otherwise we’ll find ourselves in a tough place.”
Reflecting on the result ,which saw Accies fail to score for the third game running, gaffer Rankin said: "We were outfought and outthought. Morton had a greater desire.
“We were three down after 20 minutes, we made two changes but listen any of the 11 could have come off.
“We’ve got players that because they’ve played in the Premiership think they are Premiership players; they need to get their finger out because the Championship is a hard league to play in.”
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