Derry City manager Ruaidhrí Higgins apologised to the club’s travelling support after their “unacceptable” 4-1 loss to St Patrick’s Athletic at Richmond Park on Monday night.
The Candystripes slipped four points behind Shamrock Rovers at the top of the Premier Division after a shambolic defeat in Inchicore, the in-form hosts having four different scorers as they racked up their sixth win in seven games.
Sitting top of the table only 10 days ago, Derry have picked up only one point in their last three games and Higgins gave a bracing assessment in the wake of their bank holiday capitulation.
“Without a shadow of a doubt, the most gut-wrenching night since I’ve taken over anyway, that’s for sure,” the Derry boss told RTÉ Sport.
“Up until 1-0, there wasn’t much in the game, we were fine. But from that moment on, we lost our composure, we lost our discipline.
“It’s unacceptable. Over the last couple of years, we’ve had a good defensive record. But we looked fragile tonight. Very, very fragile.
“Really, really poor goals from our end. Every single goal was preventable.
“We need to eradicate all those errors and become harder to beat than we were tonight. Because it’s well, well, well below par and unacceptable.”
In what has been an unpredictable season thus far, Derry have largely failed to capitalise on Shamrock Rovers’ scratchy form early in the campaign.
Last season’s runners-up have lost five times in the league, and have won just four of their 10 home games.
Their form on the road had been their salvation until this week but they’ve now suffered back-to-back away defeats, last week against Sligo and now in the capital.
“This is an extremely difficult moment,” admitted Higgins. “It’s a difficult night. And you either lie down under it or you come out fighting. I hope that it’s the latter.
“It’s a different season. More teams are dropping more points. Five defeats is not good enough.
“I take full responsibility. I’m in charge of the team. As a group, we all take responsibility.
“We had travelling fans coming down here in good numbers today on a Monday. People probably taking the day off work to come down here.
“We done them a disservice tonight. We apologise to them. Gutted for them that they had to come down and witness that type of performance.
“We have to roll our sleeves up and dig in. People will be out to get us now and we have to fight back.
“We have to stick our chest out and take a bit more pride in ourselves, individually and collectively, and make sure that type of performance never happens again.”
Next up for City is a home match this Friday, June 9, against Bohemians which will be broadcast live from 7.35 pm on RTE2.