Leyton Orient head coach Richie Wellens accused his side of overthinking as they fell to a 1-0 home defeat to Northampton.
A second-half strike by captain Sam Hoskins proved to be the winner, giving the visitors their second straight victory.
The home team were second-best throughout and Wellens believed his side struggled to play in a relaxed manner.
He said “We’re just not a team. We’re overthinking things, it’s scary how much the players are doing that. Ultimately I want to give them the freedom to go and play.
“We want a structure to work from but you can see when the ball comes to them they have about four or five different ideas of what to do with it – whether to run or not.
“The only thing you can do is hard work. It wasn’t a game we should lose, even though it was a poor performance.
“At times we looked like the shell of a team, we were hesitant and stuttery, our backwards passing was too slow and it was everything you don’t want to see.
“There weren’t too many positives, the experienced players performed the poorest, they made bad decisions and picked up too many bookings.”
Northampton had the edge although it took a second-half strike from Hoskins to decide the contest.
A left-flank cross by Tyrese Fornah found the visiting skipper unmarked and he connected first time past Tommy Simkin.
Orient chased for the equaliser and visiting goalkeeper Lee Burge had to turn a Demetri Mitchell delivery into the box away from danger after 81 minutes.
A Josh Koroma effort before added time then went straight into the arms of Burge as Northampton held on for the win.
It is two straight victories for the Sixfields outfit, after their win over Exeter last week, and manager Kevin Nolan saluted his side and the travelling support.
He said “We’ve got better as the game has gone on, Leyton Orient are a very good side.
“I thought we limited them to very few chances, our keeper made a very good save with about 15 minutes to go.
“But I think we deserved the result.
“We want the fans to be with us, they were fantastic. Even in the second half they were singing all the way through.
“I want them to know how much it means as a Northampton manager. But we don’t stop there, we keep pushing and what we want is togetherness. That takes you a long way.
“I’m delighted for Sam scoring, it was a fantastic little bit of play. We were talking about Tyrese getting balls into the box, the crossing and finishing is what we’ve been working on in training.”
