Dagenham & Redbridge boss Daryl McMahon admitted his side's 5-1 defeat at Dorking Wanderers was 'probably the worst' experience of his long career in football.
Daggers saw Josh Walker sent off just before the break, after a second bookable offence, when they were already two goals down.
And they conceded three more times before the hour mark, with a Dan Lincoln own goal providing no consolation.
Defeat saw them drop to 14th in the National League table and left McMahon stunned.
"I've got to be honest, this is probably the worst I've felt in my whole football career right now. I've never felt like this," he told the club website.
"We got outworked, outrun, out-thought and outfought by a better team than us. A team that had more passion, more quality, more desire to win.
"It's a bad day for us. You don't really have words to explain a performance like that, it's very difficult. I'm devastated about the performance, it's a bad one."
Daggers travelled to Meadowbank on the back of a thrilling 5-4 win over Barnet a week earlier, but saw James McShane net twice in quick succession around the half-hour mark to put the hosts on top.
Walker, the hat-trick hero seven days earlier, saw red in stoppage time and further goals from Seb Bowerman, Adam Mekki and Ryan Seager piled on the misery after the restart.
"I don't think we've been good enough. We give up too many chances and we haven't got enough character," added McMahon.
"We concede a goal and we fold. It didn't help going down to 10 men, but that happens.
"We can't hide behind anything. We can't look for excuses in that performance, there's too much of it going on.
"We all look for an excuse, why something isn't going the right why.
"There's a lack of urgency, togetherness, character in the group at the minute and we need to get it quickly."
After suffering a fifth loss in 11 league outings, Daggers also have the unenviable record of having conceded more goals (26) than any other team in the division.
And McMahon, claiming his side haven't been anywhere near the levels needed yet, wanted to see a vast improvement, with a midweek trip to Chesterfield ahead of a home date with Essex rivals Southend United on Saturday (12.30pm).
"We're not performing well enough, it's as simple as that," he said.
"You can dance around the issues and talk about people missing, but I don't want to do any of that.
"We're not doing good enough at the moment and we have to do better.
"We've got a chance to bounce back Tuesday night, we have to show character, we have to show courage, we have to show a performance.
"Forget the result, I want to see a performance, I want to see a team that represents what we're about and I don't think we've seen it at all this season if I'm being brutally honest.
"Forget the results we may have had, you get excited when you score a last-minute winner. We haven't been anywhere near the level we need to be at."
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