Livingston skipper Nicky Devlin confessed the Lions only have themselves to blame for failing to reach the top six.
A 2-0 defeat away to Dundee United marked the second straight season in which they’ve fallen at the final hurdle in their bid to cement a place in the top half of the Premiership.
But the skipper admits they haven’t been ‘good enough’ in recent weeks following a slump in form that saw them pick up just seven points from their last nine games.
He said: “It’s a major disappointment but we feel that over the last eight or nine games we’ve not been good enough and we’ve not picked up enough points in that period.
“Obviously, we lost there and even though results went our way elsewhere, we kind of feel that during that recent spell, we have not done enough.
“Ultimately, after 33 games, there have been six teams better than us and we have to take that on the chin.”
Unlike last season when it was in their hands and they missed out by conceding an injury-time equaliser to Motherwell, the Lions travelled to Tannadice knowing other results needed to go their way.
The fact that they did - with St Mirren losing to Kilmarnock and Hibs failing to beat St Johnstone - doesn’t make it any more difficult to take, says Devlin, simply because they didn’t do their own part.
He commented: “It didn’t really matter what happened elsewhere because we knew it was down to what we did and we had to do our job.
“And we’ve not done that. So results elsewhere didn’t really affect us in the end because we knew we had to come here and win.
“Over the course of the season we have had 33 games to make sure we are in it but we have not managed it.
“We are going to have to lift ourselves for the last five games. We now have five tough games coming up against teams who are fighting for their lives.”
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