The Citizens have now gone nine games without a win and are starting to lose ground on hopes of consolidating a top-eight position on the Betway Premiership table.

Gallants claimed all three points at Athlone Stadium after striker Gabadinho Mhango netted the only goal of the match as early as the seventh minute, with the Turkish mentor admitting there’s “panic” amongst his charges.

"In the end you don't know what to say, we all panicked in the last 15 minutes. I think, myself after all those years in this business, we changed out of the concept that we have," said Ertugral.

"Our changes in the end were done out of hope, and then the game went even more down for us, so when you come to the part and you don't score, don't score, they get one counter and they score.

"In the end, what is there that you can hold onto? So you need to experiment and find solutions in that, but the experiment actually didn't bring us anything.

"In the second half we tried with two strikers, we brought Darwin [Gonzalez] in and it was like a lob-sided game, and we put [Aprocius] Petrus a little bit further up and played with three [defenders], but that didn't work as well.

"So I must recap myself in the end, getting into experiments and turn our luck a bit, but it went even more [in favour of] Gallants, and I can't keep saying 'we don't score, we don't score', but in the end it is like that.

"It's the same story every week – open goals, open taps, and we don't score. Ja, I need to also get my mind a bit clear and we need to help the boys, we're totally devastated in teh dressing room at the moment."

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