Bournemouth manager Jason Tindall blamed a lack of "individual responsibility" from his players after their 3-1 Championship defeat at Reading.
Reading were 3-0 ahead at the interval, with a trio of well-taken goals from Josh Laurent, Tom McIntyre and top scorer Lucas Joao.
Bournemouth improved after the interval but had only Junior Stanislas' 85th-minute free-kick to show for their efforts.
It was their third successive league defeat.
"Individual responsibility let us down, certainly in the first half," Tindall said. "When you're 3-0 down at half time, you have already given yourself a mountain to climb.
"You've got a responsibility as an individual and you have to carry that out. Conceding those goals proved to be so costly.
"I got a lot better performance in the second half, I got more liability from the players.
"We had a go and created quite a few opportunities and also had a lot of corners. Unfortunately, we didn't really make the most of them.
"We knew Reading would sit back more in the second half and that did make it a little bit more difficult for us.
"You just have to take that responsibility. In certain situations, you just have to carry it out.
"If you don't, as we found out, then you get punished. And it's extremely costly.
"We got punished for those mistakes and that made it extremely difficult for ourselves.
"It's a young group of players and, yes, lack of confidence can come into it.
"And this team hasn't played a great deal of games together.
"We're in a bad moment at this minute but it's up to us to get us all out of this.
"We have to bounce back as quickly as possible."
Reading are now unbeaten in six league matches and up to fourth place in the table.
"It was the perfect performance," Veljko Paunovic, the Reading manager, said. "I'm so happy for the team, so happy for every single guy.
"It was also an amazing preparation from our medical team, especially on those players who have been injured over the past few weeks.
"It was also, I hope, a special performance for our fans, who will have been watching from elsewhere.
"I believe that they will have enjoyed it and I think it was our best performance of the season.
"In the first half, it was probably better due to us perfectly executing our game plan. It was fantastic how we did it.
"We had so much enthusiasm and an enormous energy.
"In the second half, we just did what we had to do. We conceded more possession but, sure, we expected that to happen.
"But we were still very effective and it just a shame that we could not score more goals.
"It was also unfortunate that Bournemouth managed to score near the end. I had hoped we might have been able to prevent that.
"No, this performance and result was not a surprise to me. We always have to keep working towards our goals and prepare the team to have performances like this.
"Yes, it is congested near the top of the table. But all that concerns us is the next game.
"A game like tonight helps the confidence and reassures us about everything that we have been working on so far."
