Mansfield Town boss Paul Cox bemoaned his side's lacklustre performance as they lost out 2-0 at Dagenham.
The Stags rarely caused home goalkeeper Liam O'Brien a threat throughout and goals from Luke Howell and Abu Ogogo were good enough for the hosts to pick up their first home win of the season.
And Cox felt his side simply were never at the races, saying: "I don't think we got going today and it's my job to find out why. There was no throwing teapots or anything like that in the changing rooms.
"I think we can talk about a number of reasons and I would like to keep them personal. If I am honest we just didn't arrive at the party in all three sections - defence, midfield and attack. We were a million miles off the pace.
"It was a lacklustre performance. I don't think the boys deliberately put in a lacklustre performance, but there are a number of reasons why we are putting out performances like that.
"We can talk about various facets of the game today but I just don't think either with or without the ball that we were good enough."
For Howell and Ogogo it was the second game in succession where they combined to see the Daggers to victory, after both netted in the 2-0 win at Hartlepool on Tuesday.
And Daggers assistant boss Warren Hackett felt they deserved nothing less than the three points.
"I am very happy. It was a great performance from the boys from start to finish," said Hackett.
"We knew Mansfield were going to be strong and very organised but I thought we dealt with all their aerial threats and we were able to impose our passing game on them. The play for our first goal was fantastic.
"Mansfield are a very direct team so they are going to have certain percentages in our final third but we dealt with that and when we had the opportunity to play the ball around and we created quite a few chances.
"Teams come to Victoria Road and tend to sit in and allow us to have possession in our own half. Sometimes they are very hard to break down but it was good that we got the first goal and they had to come out at us."
In an uneventful first half, Howell gave the Daggers the lead in first-half stoppage time when slotting home Jamie Cureton's centre, before Ogogo's deflected effort on the hour mark put them within touching distance.
Sam Clucas brought the visitors to life off the bench, and he went closest to giving them a lifeline but his 20-yard shot was cleared off the line by Brian Saah.