Coventry City's usually upbeat and ebullient manager Andy Thorn has admitted that at the moment this is the lowest point of his footballing career.
Thorn has the difficult job of boosting the morale of his players while at the same time pointing out their deficiencies on the field without wrecking their confidence.
With this aim in mind he had held 'clear the air' talks with the squad in an attempt to eradicate the individual errors that have cost the team dear this season.
Thorn is adamant that his players have the abilities to succeed at Championship level, but they need to concentrate for the entire game and cut out the mistakes that have led to conceding goals and subsequent defeats.
Thorn said, “The fans are frustrated; I am a fan and I am frustrated and the players are as much as everyone else. It’s a horrible feeling and something I have never experienced before. I don’t like it and the sooner we put it to bed the better because life’s horrible at the moment.
“Losing can become a habit and when that happens teams can get beat easily. I don’t want that to happen here and I am sure it isn’t happening because we haven’t been beaten easily; we are contributing to our own downfall and as soon as we stop that we’ll be OK.
“We are going into every game really confident and it is important we carry on doing that because if we cut that out then everything else is telling me we will start winning games.
“We had a good clear the air chat with the players this week and that went on for quite a while, which is good because the players are hurting as much as the staff and the fans.
“They are disappointed because they know that the goals we’ve been giving away we shouldn’t be. I have not questioned the players’ determination and effort, it’s just the individual errors and they are determined to put that right.
“They are a good set of boys and it’s important now that we knuckle down and nail down the things that have been costing us. We have to eradicate those things from our performance because everything else about our games isn’t bad, so we need to cut that out and that will give us victories. And the sooner we do that the better.
“It has been tough on the defenders this week because we have worked on that side even more than we usually do and hopefully the penny will drop.
"I have no doubt that once we get one win we can go on a good run. It’s just a question of getting that first one over the line and we’ll be going for it as well. We are not going to sit back and fall by the wayside, we’re going to have a proper go and then I am convinced we will go back to back and put some results together.”
City’s main injury doubts are Chris Hussey (ankle) and Clingan (foot), while Cyrus Christie and Conor Thomas were back in training this week after shaking off their respective knocks.