Cardiff City have been described as "a little bit nice" after their disappointing 3-0 defeat to Reading on Sunday.
It was a frustrating afternoon for Neil Warnock's men in Berkshire, who after a decent start were second best in most departments against the Royals.
Warnock came out in his post-match press conference and at the Madejski Stadium, saying it would have to improve over the coming weeks.
Sky Sports pundit Keith Andrews believed it was a very un-Warnock-like performance from the Bluebirds - and was surprised by one particular element of their play.
He said: "Energy levels is an absolute minimum and I thought that was really lacking in the second half, and that surprised me.
"A very un-Warnock-like performance, a very unlike Cardiff performance that we’ve seen over the last two years, certainly in the promotion season, and I just hope for their sakes it’s just one of those one-off games where they’ve struggled to get it going.
"Defensively - nowhere near. They’ve been so, so solid. Defensively, far too many gaps that Reading took advantage of."
Cardiff host Huddersfield Town next week, setting up an intriguing tie against the struggling Terriers.
Asked what he had learned about the Bluebirds against the Royals, Andrews added that they needed to get back to basics and play to their well-defined strengths.
He said: “Maybe opposition will pay them more respect than they did two years ago, even as they got the real momentum going on a promotion charge. So they’re going to have to adapt. They’re going to have to learn that they have to play in different ways. But I felt they were a little bit nice today. They need to go back to the drawing board and be ugly, aggressive.
“They have the components to make a promotion charge, there’s no doubt about that, but I would not like to see them go too far away from what they do very, very effectively.”
