Jack Ross slammed his Hibs side's performance as "lazy and selfish" as they slipped to fifth on the back of an Easter Road horror show.
The Leith boss wasn’t mincing his words after a 3-0 defeat to Dundee United saw them drop out of the top four in the Premiership for the first time in over a year.
It’s now back to back defeat for Hibs who have won just one of their last five.
And Ross challenged his players to bounce back when they head to Pittodrie next weekend.
He blasted: “It was the worst version of ourselves.
“We strive a lot to be the best version but today we were lazy, slow and selfish in our play.
“When you do that you produce that type of performance and subsequently the result.
“I’ve no qualms over the result. We deserved to lose the game and we deserved to lose it in that manner.
“It was way below the standards we’ve been at for a long time, and now we’ve got to respond to that.
“If I could provide an immediate answer then we’d all be geniuses.
“It was just way below the standards we’ve been at and have been fairly consistently.
“As I said, it was the worst version of ourselves and subsequently that’s why we were on the end of that type of result.”
Ross was shocked by the out of character performance but accepted his share of the responsibility.
He said: “It’s not (like us) but it shouldn’t deter from us getting criticism - and I mean we because it’s always my responsibility and my preparation, instruction and team selection.
“I don’t want us to be a team that thinks that’s okay. The driver for me is to make us a Hibs team that consistently finishes in the area of the table we did last year - and doesn’t just have one season like that and then drifts.
“If we produce that kind of performance we will drift.
“But we’ve received a lot of plaudits and deservedly so - and on the back of this we’ll take a lot of criticism and deservedly so.
“It’s the way in which we respond to that, both as staff and players that is important.
"You always come to crossroads in the season unless you are lucky and win every week.
"I have had loads of them in my career, even since being here.
"You choose the path you want to take.
"We can't affect this defeat but we can do something at Pittodrie next week.
"Over the course of the week we have to make sure we get back to producing performances we have done.”
