David Tutonda believes Bristol Rovers' players "let the club down" at Swindon Town on Saturday, and he has called on his teammates to put that defeat right at Wigan Athletic on Tuesday.
Rovers and their new manager Paul Tisdale travel to the DW Stadium after dropping into League One's relegation places with a 1-0 defeat at The County Ground.
Wing-back Tutonda, aged 25, insists the Gas have no illusions that their performance on Saturday was good enough, and he knows they have to respond accordingly against fellow strugglers Wigan tomorrow night.
"We’ve let ourselves down and we let the club down," Tutonda said. "I know this meant a lot to the fans, so we’re gutted, but we have to roll our sleeves up now.
"Tuesday’s around the corner and we’ve got a massive game at Wigan, and we have to go there to get three points.
"There’s no excuses on our part. We have to be better and we realise we have to get to work on Monday.
"A few of us more experienced players voiced our opinions, and we’re trying to help the younger ones.
"When you’re in a tough spot like this you need togetherness and ultimately your goal is to come out the other side better.
"We can’t lose sleep over this one. We have to learn quickly and get back to training on Monday and make sure on Tuesday we don’t let ourselves down again."
Swindon's goal on Saturday came via a poorly-defended set play, and Tutonda recognises Rovers must improve in that department swiftly.
But the Democratic Republic of the Congo-born defender expects Tisdale to have a positive impact on results and performances in the coming weeks.
"We’re all gutted," Tutonda continued. "We knew it would be a tough game and we had to roll our sleeves. The minimum we wanted was a point so to leave with nothing is a disappointment.
"It was a pretty even game. We haven’t had long to work with the new manager. That played a part, but we realised if we outworked them we could easily take the three points and we’ve let ourselves down here today.
"Set pieces have been our Achilles heel this year and we have to improve that. We have to be better in both boxes and we have a lot of work to do on the training ground.
"He’s a top manager, his CV says it all so once we get working with him properly I’m sure we’ll see a massive amount of change in how we play and I’m sure results will pick up."
