Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk surveyed the "mess" their season had become and called on all the players to start taking more responsibility, insisting they were letting down head coach Arne Slot.
The 3-0 home defeat by Nottingham Forest – a sixth in seven league matches – left the defending champions 11th, the first time in more than a decade the club have been in the bottom half of the table.
Van Dijk usually offers a level-headed assessment after matches but the latest defeat prompted words like "mess" and "panic".
"We are definitely letting him (Slot) down but we've let ourselves down as well," he said.
"You look at yourself first and then you help each other, you help each other get out of this mess because at the moment it is a mess – that’s just a fact.
"As the champions we can’t be in the situation we are in right now. What are we going to do about it? We’re going to try to turn it around and that’s the mentality everyone should have."
Van Dijk admitted there was anger in the dressing room but after the first of seven matches in 22 days he said this was no time to be turning on each other.
"It is easy to point fingers but you have to do it together," he added.
"What I want is for everyone to take responsibility on the pitch. We have to do that in order to push each other, to make each other better.
"It’s easy to maybe just think about your own situation rather than the collective side when things are not going well.
"We have been through it together and won the league and everyone was part of it and happy and when you go through a tough time you have to stick together and not point fingers.
"You have to be a man and face the toughness and go again, again and again because if you want to give up then you are at the wrong place in my eyes because this club has gone through much adversity over those years and we’ve always come out of it.
"But it doesn’t mean it is easy, it’s tiring but there is no other way.
"Wednesday (at home to PSV Eindhoven in the Champions League) is another game so what am I going to do, go home and cry? No, I’m going to go home and try to think how we can turn this around and hopefully that is what everyone is doing as well."
It is only a month since Van Dijk called a clear-the-air players’ meeting following the home defeat to Manchester United.
The Dutchman has not ruled out another in an attempt to get things back on track.
"These things I don’t plan now but let’s see how I am when I think about it and hopefully the rest of the guys also think about how we can turn this around because I think the realisation is we are in a very difficult moment," he said.
Conversely, things are on the up for Forest – for whom Murillo, Nicola Savona and Morgan Gibbs-White scored – as their biggest win at Anfield extended new manager Sean Dyche’s record to three wins, two draws and just one loss in six matches.
