Trai Hume has not given up hope on Euro 2024 qualification but accepts it is going to take a monumental effort from Northern Ireland.
Monday night's 1-0 defeat to Kazakhstan was a real body blow for Michael O'Neill's men ahead of September's double away trip to Slovenia and the return fixture with Kazakhs.
Hume knows that anything other than six points from that double-header will certainly mean their qualifying hopes are gone.
Read more: N Ireland 0 Kazakhstan 1: Monday's Euro qualifier as it happened at Windsor Park
"We need to try and maximise points from every game," said the Sunderland defender.
"We are going to have to try and win every game home and away if we are going to have a chance.
"It is going to be tough but we have to keep working and we will see what happens in September and we’ll go from there.
"We are a bit off it at the moment because teams are racking up points and we are dropping them.
"We are a young side. We have a few experienced players but we have players only playing their first international games.
"I’ve been proud to achieve my first two starts and my family have been proud but the results aren’t the way I wanted them to go."
Northern Ireland were hoping to build on an encouraging display in Denmark and keep in touch with the top of Group H.
But they wasted two good chances in the first half through Craig Cathcart and George Saville before being hit by Abat Aimbetov's late sucker punch.
Hume said O'Neill let his team know about the late winner.
"We know it is a poor goal to concede and he let us know that," he said.
"Over the week we had a good performance against Denmark but didn’t get what we wanted and had good chances against Kazakhstan in what I thought was a decent enough performance but we have lost points and it is disappointing.
"I thought we had good chances especially in the first half to maybe go in 1-0 or 2-0 up but we didn’t take them and conceded a poor goal at the end of the game and that was three points gone."
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