Midfielder Melvin de Leeuw is looking for the handbrake as he tries desperately to stop the Ross County roller-coaster.
The Staggies’ poor start to the season continued on Tuesday when they were knocked out of the League Cup after suffering a 2-0 home defeat to Hibernian.
With Jim McIntyre’s side propping up the Premiership table having lost all seven games, the regular feeling of defeat is wearing thin in the Dingwall dressing-room.
County are looking to avert that run against Dundee on Saturday and de Leeuw insists he is in unchartered territory.
He said: “We are on a roller-coaster that doesn’t stop. It’s hard – I’ve never been in something like this in my life. For me it’s new to lose seven league games in a row.
“We need to stick together and take the positives out of the game, because on Tuesday we were the better team.
“If we scored the first goal, like every game we played already, then we would have won that game. But that’s the story of it now.”
County are going through their own version of Groundhog Day but de Leeuw believes scoring first in a game can be the key to reversing the worrying trend.
He said: “I don’t know what to say about it any more. We need to work hard as a team, on Saturday we can do it again. This is it, we are in this and only we can figure it out and come out of it.
“Scoring first is the lift we need, but Hibs got that lift. After they scored their first and second goals we still had chances to come back into the game, but we didn’t turn the chances into goals.
“We need to try to get clean sheets as well, and from that we can move on.”
Dutchman de Leeuw impressed in his debut season at Victoria Park, finishing the club’s top scorer last term with nine goals in 35 appearances.
However, the 26 year-old believes he has yet to show his best under new manager Jim McIntyre, who replaced Derek Adams a fortnight ago.
“If I look at myself in the mirror I haven’t reached my level as I did last year,” said de Leeuw.
“The only thing that will get me there is to work hard and get the confidence back. That’s what we work on every day.
“The manager has his own ideas but he’s only been here two weeks. He wants to see everyone as well. It’s hard for the new manager because we were already short of confidence.
“The new management team want us to show we have talent in the squad and that we are a good team, and we need to believe in that. Then we can show it on the pitch.”