Steven Naismith warned his floundering Hearts side must cut out the slackness at both ends of the pitch that has left them without a win in five competitive games this season.
The Jambos crashed to a fourth consecutive defeat as they lost 3-1 away to Motherwell in the William Hill Premiership on Sunday.
They have scored just two goals all season and were booed off by their increasingly exasperated supporters after their meek display at Fir Park.
“It’s frustrating,” said Naismith. “At the moment, in both boxes we’re second best. Every goal we’ve conceded this season has been really, really poor.
“In the final third, our final pass and decision-making was poor and when we got shots we didn’t make the most of them. In both boxes, we’re not at the level we need to be at.”
Motherwell went two ahead through headers from Paul McGinn and Stephen O’Donnell before Yutaro Oda pulled one back. Tom Sparrow sealed the win following a lapse from Hearts debutant Andres Salazar.
Asked about the concession of the first two goals from set-pieces, Naismith said: “It’s poor. There’s nothing else to be said. Even the third goal is poor.
“Every goal we have conceded we’ve given a helping hand to the opposition.
“There’s not one goal I’ve looked and thought ‘wow, that’s great play’. Our decision-making, quality of defending and timing of when we drop has been really poor and it’s costing us big time at the moment.
“We need to fix it. It can’t go on the way it is. On the other side we need to be better at making chances. The quality of our final ball is lacking massively.”
Motherwell boss Stuart Kettlewell was delighted with his team’s performance as they notched their first league win of the season.
“The result is the most important thing but it came with a real strong performance,” he said. “That’s what we need to look like as a Motherwell team.
“The set-plays were important for us but I thought in general our play was pretty good and I still think it can be better.
“I am always going to want more and the reason I say that is I think we will have that in our group through time, with players coming back from injury and the potential to potentially freshen one or two things up this week as we draw a close to the transfer window.
“The players need to come away with a lot of confidence off the back of today.”
