Josh Mullin admits Hamilton Accies finishing outside the top half of the Championship simply isn't good enough.
The Livingston loanee joined the club last summer with the hope of helping them seal a return straight back to the Scottish Premiership.
But that hasn't gone according to plan with the South Lanarkshire side knowing the best they can now finish is sixth in the table, following a lacklustre 2-0 defeat at home to promotion hopefuls Raith Rovers yesterday.
A goal in either half from Ben Williamson saw the Kirkcaldy men run out comfortable winners at New Douglas Park, with Accies 10 points adrift of the play-off spots with one game to go.
And Mullin wasn't happy with the display as they suffered a 13th defeat of the season ahead of Friday's final match of the season away to Inverness.
He said: "I'm not going to stand here and make excuses.
"We just weren't good enough. Raith looked like a team who had something to play for and we just went through the motions at times.
"We looked like a team that was safe. But, to be honest, I don't even like standing here saying "oh we are safe", because I don't think it's good enough.
"But, realistically, that's where we are at this moment in time and we need to look at ourselves going into the last game of the season to try and finish on a positive note, so we can get a bounce going into next season."
Asked if they had underachieved having been a Premiership side last season, the 29-year-old added: "I think that's it. I think the quality is there and that's why I came here, looking at the squad and what we had.
"But I don't think where we finish is down to a lack of trying or the way we've played football.
"I just think it's been things like switching off in games.
"Everybody knows we've dropped a lot of points late on. It's sad, it's disappointing but it's not through a lack of effort from the boys.
"It would have been nicer to finish higher up the table."
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