Stuart Kettlewell accepts Ross County must learn from a second Old Firm battering.
But the Staggies co-manager insists his team can draw great encouragement from a strong start to Premiership life across the first 11 matches.
The Dingwall men, ripped apart by Rangers on Wednesday night and Celtic 11 days before, have now squared up to every top-flight team once.
They approach tomorrow’s trip to Hamilton sitting seventh place in the table, with Kettlewell eager to lift the players quickly for another crucial test.
The disappointment of defeat remained acute for the 35-year-old yesterday morning, just 12 hours on from the final whistle against Steven Gerrard’s side.
But with several late-night reruns of the 4-0 defeat already behind him, Kettlewell was able to digest the poor performance and set it in perspective.
He said: “It’s still pretty raw, obviously. There are ways to lose a game of football and I don’t think we did ourselves a great deal of justice last night.
“In the first 20 minutes, I felt we’d set the tone OK and were doing alright – but against the Old Firm the game can be taken away from you very quickly.
“It is so important the players understand what went wrong but very quickly pick ourselves up and prepare for Saturday.
“It can become a little bit clouded by feeling sorry for ourselves.
“That’s us played every team in the league now. If we evaluate that first period, I think we’ve only lost to one team we expected to compete with – Livingston.
“Outwith that, the three defeats were Rangers here and Aberdeen and Celtic away. We have to place everything in perspective.
“The statistics could say we’ve not won in five games or that we’ve only lost twice in seven.
“What I look at is that we have competed in most games and given a good account of ourselves in most games.
“What we can’t shy from is that, in the games we’ve lost, there has been too big a gulf on the day.
“We have to rectify that going into the next quarter.”
The biggest lesson for the players and management, Kettlewell believes, lies in restraining attacking instincts and becoming harder to break down against the bigger teams.
He said: “Sometimes it can be a little bit of a war of attrition in accepting we might have to give up possession of the ball in areas where it’s not hurting us. We have to realise that.
“There are certainly lessons there for us.”