SOUTHEND United skipper Nathan Ralph felt the Shrimpers let people down in their 2-0 defeat to Maidenhead United at Roots Hall.
Kevin Maher’s side slumped to their third home defeat in succession after two headers from Kevin Lokko made sure of victory for the Magpies.
And Ralph admitted Blues’ display was nowhere near good enough.
“It’s very disappointing,” said Ralph.
“A lot of the things we pride ourselves on we didn’t show today.
“Ultimately we let the fans, the staff and the gaffer down.”
Both of Maidenhead’s goals came from ex Shrimpers midfielder Nathan Ferguson delivering set pieces into the box.
And Ralph is becoming increasingly concerned by the Shrimpers inability to deal with dead ball situations.
“It’s very frustrating because it’s one of the things we’ve been really good with in the last few years,” said Ralph.
“We’ve not given teams much in terms of set pieces and goals in general.
“But I think that might be five or six set piece goals now this season and that’s unacceptable for our standards.
“It’s something we need to improve on quickly.”
However, Ralph also admitted Blues must do more when attacking too.
“We had decent spells in the game and I feel like we can beat any team in the league here,” said Ralph.
“We should be doing a lot more and those periods showed we had the ability to.
“We had some good chances we need to put away so it’s both ends of the pitch really.”
But Ralph is now keen to see a strong reaction when the Shrimpers head to Eastleigh in the FA Cup this weekend.
“We can’t feel sorry for ourselves,” said Ralph.
“We’ll be in bright and early on Monday to look through it, see what we’ve done wrong and work on it.
“We then have to put it to one side and go again.
“We’ve got the FA Cup next and then the league again the week after.
“We understand it’s not acceptable but we can’t dwell on it.
“We have to move on and be positive.
We have to put it right as soon as possible.
