AYR United boss Gary Naysmith was left feeling "really disappointed" as his Ayr United side suffered a heavy defeat away to Arbroath on Saturday.
The Honest Men missed an opportunity to win consecutive league matches for the first time since October last year as they fell to a 4-1 loss at Gayfield Park.
In what proved to be a frustrating afternoon for the South Ayrshire outfit, the hosts led 2-0 midway through the first half thanks to quickfire goals from Thomas O'Brien and Michael McKenna.
The score remained the same until the final 15 minutes when further strikes from Gavin Reilly and Jacob MacIntyre added to the Arbroath advantage.
Kieran Shanks did get a goal back for Ayr late in the Scottish Championship clash but it provided little consolation in what was a dismal afternoon for Naysmith's men.
"I spoke to the players after the game and had a good, honest, chat," the Somerset boss told Ayr United TV.
"The results the most important thing, it’s very disappointing to lose 4-1 in any game, it’s very difficult."
Though Naysmith believed his side started the game in a positive fashion before letting the hosts take control.
He added: "In terms of the performance, I thought we started the game well, I thought we were on the front foot.
"We’ve had a really good chance with a set play, another couple of chances, half chances, I was quite happy with how we were playing.
"With Arbroath's first real attack, a corner, they score a goal. Five minutes later they score a second goal which is preventable from our point of view.
"All of a sudden, we’re rocked a wee bit, we’re 2-0 down from a game we’ve actually started quite well.
"For five or 10 minutes, Arbroath were on top, but we finished the half strongly."
The manager says it was further mistakes that allowed Arbroath to get out of sight towards the end of the match.
He continued: "You go in at half-time, you’re 2-0 down in a game you should never be 2-0 down, but we are.
"I thought that allowed Arbroath to sit in and make it difficult for us to break them down.
"We tried to go more attacking around 60 minutes but then we gave the ball away, we were loose in possession.
"They’ve hit us on the counter-attack twice, Kieran [Shanks] gets a goal back, but all the goals were preventable."
Naysmith admitted that it was hard to take too many positives from the match and that his Ayr side must find a level of consistency if their league position, which is currently seventh, is to improve.
He said: "I’m not going to sugarcoat it; there were bits in the first half that were okay but I’m not going to hide from the fact that that’s a really bad result.
"It was quite glaring that we could have done better, faults [lead to Arbroath’s goals] were quite easy to find.
"We’re really disappointed, I’m disappointed for the fans and everybody at the club.
"We had a chance to close into the teams above us and get further away from the teams below us, and we’ve not took that chance.
"It’s systematic of our season so far, we get one good result then an indifferent result, we need to get far more consistency."
Next up for Ayr is a home league clash against Raith Rovers on Saturday, November 14.
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