Aberdeen defender Nicky Devlin believes only the players themselves can haul the club out of the mire.
Tuesday’s 1-1 draw with Dundee at Pittodrie left the Dons in eighth place in the Scottish Premiership and brought Barry Robson’s time as manager to an end.
A section of the Aberdeen support called for Robson’s dismissal at the end of the game and Devlin knows the fans want action rather than words from their side.
He said: “I understand frustrations are high and in the dressing room we’re as disappointed.
“We don’t want to be sitting eighth in the table. It’s not where Aberdeen should be or aim to be.
“We have to be better than that but I’m sure there have been quite a few players come in and say things.
“Fans don’t want to hear me come up and say ‘we should be better and we should do this or that better.’
“We have to start doing it, simple as that.
“We’re the players who are out there and the ones who were there were more than capable of winning.”
Experienced players have to lead by example
Two points from a possible nine since the resumption of league matches after the winter break mean the search is under way for the fifth manager in under three years at Pittodrie.
For the players a fight to get back into the race for Europe continues.
Devlin said: “It’s a difficult period of time. We all accept that and being one of the more experienced ones it falls on us to help dig the boys out of it.
“We’ve got a few boys in there who are experienced and have been through difficult periods in their careers and we need everyone to stick together in the dressing room and try to help turn these results into better ones.
“Being at a club like Aberdeen you are going to be under pressure if you don’t get results.
“It’s us on the park who are not doing what we should be doing at times.
“It has been fine margins in terms of the goals we’ve been giving away especially in the last two midweek games where we’ve been in front and not been able to kill the game off before conceding poor goals from our point of view.
“It has ultimately cost us four points.”
Nicky Devlin insists confidence has not dipped
Aberdeen’s struggles in the bottom half of the table have left them with much work to be done.
Devlin insists confidence has not dipped at Pittodrie and retains the belief with in-form 18-goal striker Bojan Miovski in their line-up they can mount a recovery in the second half of the campaign.
He said: “I’ve not noticed a confidence dip myself within the dressing room. It’s a bubbly dressing room full of characters who don’t allow you to dwell on bad results.
“We try to move on as quickly as we can. We watch everything, do our analysis and try to learn so we don’t make similar mistakes.
“We’ve got Bojan at the top end of the park still scoring goals so he’s certainly not lost any confidence with the run we’ve been on.
“Bojan is sitting on 18 goals and we’ve not given him the service he should get. We’re maybe asking him to do too much himself but it’s something we have to work on and be better as a team.
“We set-up to try to create more things, more chances for him, but you can’t rely on Bojan scoring a penalty every game.
“Bojan is doing the business for us but defensively we have to be better in our box which is something we’ve not been in the last few games.
“We’ve not been ruthless enough in both boxes.”
‘We feel we can beat Celtic’
While the search for a new manager is under way the focus within Aberdeen’s changing room is on Saturday’s league match against champions Celtic.
The Hoops will be strong favourites but Devlin insists his side is capable of beating Brendan Rodgers’ league leaders.
He said: “We feel we can win the game on Saturday, there’s no doubt about that.
“We performed well against the teams in Europe this season and in the last game against Celtic here. We didn’t get the result but we did well in the game.
“But we know in the key moments in both boxes we have to be better as that’s ultimately where we’re letting ourselves down.
“Every game since I’ve been here you have to try and win, it’s as simple as that.”
Conversation