VIDEO: Players ‘gave up ghost’ in Oval defeat - Ferguson

It was an apt analogy as the Sky Blues produced a horror show on Hallowe’en weekend as their miserable recent run of results continued.

“It was desperately disappointing firstly for the fans who have travelled, for myself and the players,” Ferguson told Times Sport.

“It’s always disappointing losing games but as I said the previous week, it’s the manner in which you lose them.

“Again we gave away goals from individual errors after battling well.

“Dwayne Nelson had kept us in the game and then we go and make individual errors and within the space of four minutes,we find ourselves 2-0 down.

“Then the wheels came off and we weren’t mentally strong enough to battle back and get ourselves back into the game and it looked as if we had just given up the ghost.

“I’m certainly not a quitter when it comes to playing football or managing at football but some of the players quit on us today and it’s something we need to look at.

“I asked the players when we met up in the summer about how we could do well and my reasoning was that we had to be consistently consistent and at the start of the season it looked as though the players had taken that on board.

“This group of players were top of the league not so long ago but over the past number of weeks, that same group of players haven’t been consistent enough, haven’t had the desire to want to battle in matches and earn the right to win matches.

“It’s frightening when you see what the players do on a Tuesday and Thursday in training and then see what they do on a matchday.

“It’s something that I have to address. Myself, Lee and Norman will talk at length about what we think we need to do to put it right and if it needs to be done, it will be done.

“If changes need to be made and younger players brought in who are going to give us the attitude and hunger that we need to do well, we’ve proved this week with Eoin Kane and Matthew Shevlin that we are prepared to do that - nobody’s place is guarnateed in this team.

“We needed leaders all over the pitch and to his credit, Davy Munster is always one who tries to organise and be vocal.

“We know Davy doesn’t have the pace or the ability that he did have and he is probably playing more now that he thought he would do but what he does have is the attitude and the heart to do well and try and drive other players on but unfortunately there weren’t too many who responded to him,” added Ferguson.