Walsall boss Mat Sadler spoke of his frustration as his side slipped to just their second defeat of the league season away to Milton Keynes Dons on Saturday afternoon.
Falling behind to Callum Hendry's 18th-minute goal, the Saddlers couldn't make use of one of a handful of openings as they saw their recent run of form come to an end.
With an increasing number of players consigned to the sidelines, the manager made several changes to his team and later admitted his team didn't adapt to the situation.
Speaking to George Bennett of the Express & Star, Sadler said: "I didn't think we looked ourselves at all today, which is frustrating.
"Teams are sometimes down to dynamics and we didn't quite adapt to not having Liam on the pitch on this left-hand side.
"You know you're going to have to do that when the moments come. In this stadium, you want to run their wing-backs back the other way and I don't think we quite did that enough on both sides.
"Especially in that first forty-five minutes, it just felt a little bit tentative in our play which is unusual for us.
"I don't know, maybe there was a hangover from being here three or four months ago.
"We wanted to change that and we wanted to make sure that we put a proper performance in today which in the second half we gave it a go.
"We were on the front foot and we wanted a reaction.
"I don't think we were anywhere near the levels that we've set ourselves in the first half and that's why you come away from it feeling frustrated because I feel like we're a good team.
"We're going to have more positives throughout the season and when you miss an opportunity, it just hurts a little bit more."