Alex Neil urged Norwich City to "fight to the end" after Saturday's 2-0 Premier League loss to Aston Villa left his side in the relegation zone.
Joleon Lescott and Gabby Agbonlahor scored in a six-minute spell either side of half-time to condemn Norwich to a sixth straight defeat in all competitions.
"I'm extremely disappointed, because we've been working extremely hard to get us into a good place to win games, but unfortunately we're not doing that," Neil said.
"All you can do is make sure you do your best and keep working and get things prepared as much as you can and then hope that the players can provide the quality on the pitch."
Newcastle United's 1-0 home win against West Brom dragged Norwich back into the bottom three, but Villa remain eight points from safety.
"People can say what they like, but what we've got to do is make sure we've got enough character and bottle about us to react and respond and show that we've put up a real fist of it and fight to the end," Neil added.
"You give it everything you've got and you fight tooth and nail until the whistle ends and you give it everything you've got in your body and that's the bottom line, you see if that's enough.
"If that's not enough, then you can look yourself in the mirror and you know you've done everything you can.
"That's as simple as football is for us. People talk about the psychological barriers and all this nonsense – it's simple.
"There's a ball, 11 players, go and work, go and try, go and fight, go and do everything you can to try and score.
"When they've got it, get the ball back. It's pretty much as simple as that.
"I think people complicate football far too much at times and I think if you're that fragile and your confidence is hurt because you've lost a couple of games, you're in the wrong game."
