Captain David Marshall felt Derby County fell way below the levels they should be at as the Sky Bet Championship season reaches its climax as they lost 3-0 to Preston North End at Deepdale on Tuesday night.
The Rams fell to defeat following goals from Ben Whiteman, Ched Evans and Ryan Ledson, which extended their losing run to four games.
First-half substitute George Edmundson went closest to scoring for Derby as he forced a strong save from Preston goalkeeper Daniel Iversen in the second but it was a night to forget for Wayne Rooney’s side.
Derby now sit four points ahead of Rotherham United in the final relegation spot, however, the Millers have three games in hand on the Rams.
Speaking to RamsTV after the game, Marshall was visibly frustrated with the disappointing defeat.
“It is bitterly disappointing,” he admitted. “Anyone in a relegation fight would expect us to be hard to beat and showing a bit of fight, but tonight I felt we were nowhere near the performance levels that we should be at.
“Parts of Blackburn game last Friday were good and I don’t think anyone could blame the effort, but I don’t think that application was there tonight.
“It is hard to pinpoint why, but we are in a relegation fight and we can’t go out the way we went out tonight.
“Goals change games and overall, there are no arguments. The performance was no where near good enough.
“We just have to take it on the chin, we are running out of games and it is such a low place in the dressing room at the minute, but we realise we have to lift ourselves and go again.”
Mood in the dressing room was understandably low following defeat, but Marshall knows the Rams need to find something to get themselves out of danger in the remaining three fixtures.
That starts on Saturday as Birmingham City travel to Pride Park Stadium in the penultimate home fixture of the season (3pm kick-off).
“It is a really low dressing room at the minute and rightly so,” Marshall said. “Confidence is everything in football, if we can go and get the first goal against Birmingham and then the three points, which we are more than capable of doing, then the league looks a different place.
“It is hard to pick ourselves up, especially so close after the game. We will take tomorrow as to recover and then go again on Thursday and Friday in training and we know how big the Birmingham game is.
“We have to concentrate on our performance now, we have to be better. We have put ourselves in the position where the last three games are absolutely massive and we shouldn’t be in that position, but we are.
“We weren’t good enough tonight. It is difficult because we have obviously not seen the fans for a full season and we have let them down."