Gretna caretaker boss Mick Wadsworth put a brave face on the ailing club's 6-1 hammering at Inverness.
"It's been a bad week, we've lost a couple of players - Kissock and Baldacchino," he said.
"We've got so little variation just now, and this has been a poor day, but I'm not being critical of the players.
"Today is hopefully just a major blip in this run of games because we've done really well recently and we've still got two to play."
Wadsworth admitted a long journey was the last thing administration-hit Gretna wanted after a week when John-Paul Kissock returned to Everton and Ryan Baldacchino moved to Australia.
"Preparation wasn't great for the game," he added. "It was about 7-7:30 we were at the ground, we didn't stop for a meal and we had to eat on the bus, but the microwave wouldn't work. Cold lasagne - so the preparation was poor.
"I don't want to make excuses because I thought Inverness were terrific.
"Having said that, I thought the first goal was scandalous - it was at least three metres offside, it wasn't even marginal - but there's nothing we can do about that.
"I thought we might have had a penalty in the first half, which would have made it a better game."
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~25~RS~)