Hamilton Accies captain Brian Easton admits his side are "not where they want to be" after their 3-0 defeat at home to Raith Rovers left them languishing in the bottom half of the Championship.
With three league wins out of 14, Stuart Taylor's side are seventh in the table, three points ahead of basement side Dunfermline, and 13 behind their opponents from yesterday in second.
Having dropped down from the Premiership after seven seasons in the top flight, there was a lot of pressure on Accies to bounce straight back up, but head coach Brian Rice quit unexpectedly in August and replacement Stuart Taylor admits he has had a job steadying the ship.
With yesterday's defeat being their seventh in the league this season, Easton is obviously aware of Hamilton's position in the table, but says they're not worried about it just yet.
"It's such a tight league and it can change so quickly," he said. "I still think it's early enough in the season where we're not hitting any sort of panic button, but it's not where we want to be.
"Not counting today, the last couple of weeks has been a lot better and you get the feeling that you're just going to get stronger and stronger as the season goes on.
"There were some good signs of us moving forward - but a day like today just brings you back down to earth.
"There's still plenty of work to be done, much like the Partick Thistle game [a 6-1 thrashing last month], we really need to say we're not where we want to be right now and it's going to take a lot of work to be where we want to be.
"In the last couple of weeks we were on that way, so hopefully we can get back to where we were and continue that forward momentum."
The latest defeat saw a Kieran MacDonald own-goal and an Ethan Ross double put Raith high and dry by the interval, and Easton knows that isn't acceptable.
He said: "You talk about giving yourself a mountain to climb, that was absolute Everest.
"We just absolutely killed ourselves in the first half, giving them three goals, three cheap goals, and you can't do that in this league.
"It's so, so difficult even going a goal behind - to go three goals behind is so hard to come back from.
"We had a great day on the first day of the season when we did it [fought back to draw 4-4 with Raith at Stark's Park], but you can't put yourself in that situation all the time, and think you're going to get a way out of it.
"It's really frustrating. The last couple or three weeks, the way we've been playing in games has been really good, but you see that momentum, and then you get a day like today where it all falls down.
"We just need to build it back up again, that's all you can do."
Hamilton make the trip to Maryhill to clash with Thistle at Firhill, and Easton says there's more than a thought of retribution for that 6-1 hammering at New Douglas Park on October 15.
"When their name gets brought up the first thing you think of is that day here, it was just totally unacceptable," he admitted.
"We need to use that as motivation, it's a wee chance to go and put that right, and show them, show everyone, that that was a one-off.
"But there's still work to be done.
"Hopefully the boys - as disappointed as we all are - are ready to go [this] morning and really get to work to get it right.
"There's still work to be done, but with this group of boys, this manager and the staff, it's all there, it's just about getting it clicking and getting it going again."
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