Aberdeen manager Jimmy Thelin told his players they will never halt their alarming slump if they do not get the basics right after a 2-0 defeat by Hibernian made it 14 league games without a win.
Headed goals from Nectarios Triantis and Nicky Cadden consigned the Dons to an eighth defeat in nine William Hill Premiership games.
Thelin has remained consistently level-headed throughout both Aberdeen’s flying start to the season and their ongoing struggles but his patience wore thin after conceding from a 24th-minute corner and Cadden’s free header.
The Swede said: “It’s about responsibility now. It’s not about how you play or the system – it’s about basics.
“It’s about how you run for each other and winning 50/50 duels. In some games right now, the opponent is winning everything. That’s not good enough at this level.
“We had 1800 people who travelled here to watch our team play and the way we lost the game is not good enough.
“Players have to go out on the pitch and give everything you have. It’s a competition, you have to compete. Right now, when things are tough, you have to take a step forward, not back.
“How Hibs scored, how much time they had to put a cross in, how we defended a set-play – it’s similar to other games we’ve lost. It simply has to stop because it’s impossible to compete.
“You have to give everything you have. You can’t go into a game giving away 50/50 situations. You can win some and lose some. But you can’t lose every one. That’s the big problem for us right now.”
Aberdeen would have drawn level on points with leaders Celtic if they had not conceded two stoppage-time equalisers at Easter Road on November 26.
Victory that day would have taken them 26 points above then bottom side Hibs but David Gray’s team cut the gap to two as they moved into fifth.
While nobody could have foreseen the scale of Aberdeen’s slide, the Hibs head coach insisted he never doubted his own players.
“I can believe it because of, it’s easy to say when you look back, the belief I always had in the group, the togetherness I’ve seen every single day on the training ground, the way we’d lose games of football or things that were going against us potentially within the game,” he said.
“I always believed, given the time, we would turn it round and I think the players deserve all the credit for that, for sticking together during real tough times.
“That was the challenge to the players, to make sure that our run continued and didn’t end at this point, because that was such a turning point the last time in the season, and to make sure that Aberdeen didn’t turn in their favour.”
Meanwhile, Gray is confident Hibs are prepared for all eventualities after Stoke reportedly tabled a £1.5million offer for Elie Youan, who has not played since Boxing Day because of a foot injury.
“We just need to make sure we are prepared,” he said. “We’ve been really proactive and we’re always looking to try to make the squad better, and we’ve got a lot of good players that will attract attention as well.
“So we need to be always ready to react. But at this moment in time, Elie’s still a Hibs player.”
