Mitch Nichols has delivered a brutally honest assessment of Western Sydney's substandard A-League season, and stressed the time to re-light the spark must be now.
Still carrying hope for a grand-final appearance, Nichols admits the Wanderers' form "hasn't been good enough" despite their often tantalising build-up play.
Anaemic results -- three wins, five losses and an incredible nine draws -- have ravaged a campaign hardly befitting a club that's made three grand finals in its four seasons and offset the other dreadfully poor one with an historic Asian Champions League trophy.
For the first time, the club's perpetually devout fans are openly resentful, the Red and Black Bloc this week declaring "enough is enough" and demanding coach Tony Popovic and his management step up.
Popovic, who must surely be feeling the most pressure since the Wanderers' 2012 inception, is curtly adamant the goal remains to win the title.
The move away from the under-construction Pirtek Stadium hasn't helped.
But as it stands, the Wanderers have 18 points from 17 games, leaving them 25 adrift of leaders Sydney FC and seven ahead of last-placed Adelaide United.
They now face a tall task to ensure a top-six finish and put a dent in the finals, while simultaneously navigating a gruelling ACL schedule featuring long-haul travel and, later this month, four matches in 10 days including a possible trip to China.
Nichols says the playing group still believe they have the character and depth to succeed in both competitions.
But after Saturday's tough-to-take 2-1 defeat to Brisbane, a rapid turnaround is non-negotiable. "We needed to win on the weekend and we came up short," Nichols told AAP.
"We had our chances -- it's just the story of our season.
"We're making silly errors and getting punished for them. It hasn't been good enough on our behalf.
"But we still believe we can make it to grand-final day. We need to start righting those wrongs this weekend and climb our way back up the table."
Nichols noted it was particularly crucial to take maximum points from their next two games, away to seventh-placed Wellington Phoenix on Saturday and then home to ninth-placed Central Coast Mariners, as the third Sydney derby looms the following week.
"The two teams we've got next are around us [on the table] so we've got to win," he said.
"It's not really a home game for Wellington [in New Plymouth] so we can take advantage of that."
Nichols has started every game but is unsatisfied with his one goal, compared with the 10 he netted in 2015-16's run to the decider.
"I'm fit and I've been looking after myself," he said.
"Hopefully I can continue that and start performing and scoring more goals to get this team out of the bad run."