Alan McCormack described the dressing room meeting that following Brentford’s defeat against Stevenage on Saturday as “honest”.
Brentford Manager Uwe Rösler, his coaching staff and the players spoke at length after The Bees were beaten 2-1 in Hertfordshire.
They had taken an early lead through Clayton Donaldson and had complete control.
But goalkeeper David Button dithered rather than clearing a back pass and François Zoko robbed him to level.
Zoko scored what proved to be the winner soon after.
Speaking exclusively to Bees Player yesterday morning before training, Alan said the players had their say after the match and had listened to what their manager had to say.
He said they would go about putting it right from the moment they walked back in to the Training Ground on Monday morning.
“You don’t have a meeting like that unless you want to get something out of it,” said Alan.
“The manager asked some questions and got honest feedback.
“We, as players, got honest feedback from the gaffer.
“No-one can sit in that dressing room and say they are happy with the way they are playing.
“It is a team effort and if we don’t win the game we will have a miserable weekend.
“We said some words that won’t be spoken about outside the dressing room, it’s a personal thing.
“The gaffer will come in today, like the players, and we all want to get back to winning ways.
“That will start from the second we walk in the gates.”
Alan said Saturday’s game was “frustrating” to lose after Brentford had dominated the opening stages.
He said Stevenage’s equaliser knocked the stuffing out of The Bees and the home side turned the game in to a battle Brentford did not win.
“It was a frustrating game,” he said.
“We had a lot of possession from back to middle but up top we seemed to break down quickly or not get our chances away.
“We had more than 20 entries in to the final third or chances but are yet to score a lot of goals.
“It was frustrating to lose considering how we started.
“We started very well, the mistake for the goal knocked the stuffing out of us and we lost our way.
“We conceded another goal, they got the run of it and they turned it in to a battle.
“We didn’t cope too well with it.
“We tried to play football against a team that wanted to beat us up; they coped better with it than we did.”
Alan said Brentford had to take the positives from the way they started the match but Stevenage changed their game plan and stopped The Bees playing.
He admitted Brentford did not respond well to the equalising goal and although no-one could question the effort, it was not working for The Bees at the moment.
“We always work on a game plan,” said Alan.
“Our plan for Saturday worked really well for 15 minutes, we got our goal and could have had another one or two.
“They got a grip on what we were trying to do.
“They stopped the full backs playing and we didn’t seem to be able to change it.
“We have to take the positives from the first 15 minutes and look at how to adapt when other teams change it.
“Our full backs were getting the ball down the side and in to the middle.
“They went man for man to stop our play and made it very difficult for us to play football quickly.
“They stopped us playing, they did their job.
“We have to hold our hands up and say we dropped a gear after they scored rather than raising it.
“At half time we knew we had a chance if we stepped up a gear.
“You can’t fault the effort but it’s not working for us.
“We need some scrappy wins.”
Alan said Brentford were very capable of climbing in to the promotion race and could look to last season for confidence.
The Bees have 15 points from their first 11 games, having taken 17 from their first 11 last season – a year when they finished third in the table and a win on the final day would have taken them up.
Tranmere Rovers were top of League One at this point last season and finished outside the top six.
Alan said the players wanted to prove they were capable to producing good performances.
“At the start of last year teams flew out of the blocks, like Tranmere, and they were reeled back in,” he said.
“I was told we have a similar amount of points to the team last year and we know how that ended.
“At Swindon we had a poor start; we couldn’t get a run of wins.
“It is not nice but it is not the end of the world.
“We still have 35 games to play; there are a lot of points to play for.
“If we can win two thirds of those games, which I think we are capable of, we will be up in the top four, if not the top two.
“The games can’t come quickly enough, we would have played another 90 minutes on Saturday to try and turn things around.
“You are only as good as your last game.
“The lads want to prove we can win games and can produce performances.”
Bees Player subscribers can see an interview with Alan McCormack here.