Steve Morison pulled no punches with his post-match assessment as he simply said his Cardiff City players "didn't turn up" in the 2-1 defeat by Reading.
Morison said it was all the more disappointing after his side shot out of the blocks against Norwich City last week, a so-called stronger team in this league. But as the manager has alluded to so far this term, he believes the league is even and the slightest drop in standards will see you punished.
That, he believes, is what happened to his players, who simply weren't at the races and were deserving of the loss.
"I'm disappointed. We just didn't turn up. It's disappointing because of how well we did last week and how poor we were today," Morison said of the match. "It's just the league. You drop your levels and you lose games of football.
"I don't know. You'd have to get them up here to ask. We gave them a plan, we told them what was going to happen and we didn't perform to the same levels that we performed last week.
"This league is a very even league this year. Anyone can beat anyone. If you drop your levels you lose and we did that.
"Everyone takes accountability. Us as staff and the players. Did we do enough? Did we get the training right? We will reflect on it over the weekend. It's difficult now.
"I think the main one, which is the most frustrating, is the attitude and mentality, rather than ability and what we did with the ball. We weren't brave enough. They didn't have belief in themselves. Last week we had all of that in abundance.
"They are human beings at the end of the day and they are allowed to have bad days at the office. Let's just hope they are few and far between."
Cardiff started the game well, scoring after four minutes through Callum O'Dowda, who almost netted again just minutes later, but he was denied by a fantastic Joe Lumley save low down to the keeper's left.
Morison believes that moment could have seen the game turn on its head, but the Royals gained in confidence and went into the ascendancy. They never lost control.
"We scored and it was the worst thing that could have happened. Then the next one, Cal goes through and the keeper makes a decent save. We might have been 2-0 up and we might have grown in confidence," Morison added.
"But they go and score the penalty and we gave them belief. We needed to take the belief out of their game. But they grew in confidence and their second goal is a screamer, but we gave them that confidence. We just made bad decisions off the back of that."
The main flashpoint was that penalty, when Curtis Nelson hauled down Tom Ince, who was through on goal after rounding Ryan Allsop. Many thought it was a red card, Morison himself was expecting it, but he thought Cardiff should have been awarded a foul in the build-up to that moment.
"I don't think it should have got to that," the manager added. "I thought Cedric (Kipre) got a two-handed push in the back off Shane Long. I don't know the rules, there are so many different rules. Apparently he was running away from goal so it wasn't a sending off. I fully expected him to get sent off."
Speaking to BBC radio after the match, Morison said: "Last week we were brilliant, this week I can only apologise to the 2,000-odd fans who gave up their Saturday to come and watch us not turn up."
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