FOUR days on from Grimsby Town's disaster at Halifax and Paul Hurst must still be struggling to make sense of his side's showing at the Shay.
The boss – who is now permanently in sole charge following Rob Scott's sacking – admits it was difficult to legislate for the display, which left him with far more questions than answers.
His main headache appears to surround the choice of formation – with a growing number of fans calling for a return to last season's 4-4-2 system.
It means that the manager has some big decisions to make ahead of today's trip to Chester – a match that will come under increased scrutiny following the result against the Shayman.
And Hurst knows he needs a 'huge response' from his players at the Exacta Stadium.
"I still can't really explain the performance at Halifax – sometimes things happen like that in football," he said.
"There are some games where it's not going well but everyone can still see the effort, but Tuesday night was pretty gutless.
"It was a quiet dressing room afterwards but I said my part to a degree.
"This week, we sat down and went through it because, no matter what you say after the game, it's sometimes lost on people.
"They think 'that didn't happen' or 'that's not right', so we showed them.
"This is sport and this is football. On Saturday, it was as though everything was good because we'd won.
"After Tuesday, it was the end of the world because we'd been beaten, heavily. That's the highs and lows of football wrapped up in a week.
"It was a tough one to take – there needs to be a massive response at Chester."
Reacting to those calls for a change in formation, Hurst added: "Last season, when we played 4-4-2, a lot of people wanted us to play 4-3-3.
"We play that this year and then they want us to go back to 4-4-2.
"Everyone has got an opinion and I understand that.
"I don't think the formation was the reason behind the result at Halifax.
"It would be interesting to see what people think we should change to in terms of our formation.
He insisted: "It's too early to say whether we're going to change it or not.
"What I would say is that you don't throw everything out of the window because of a bad result.
"It's something that we've got to look at."
Some members of the Town squad will have almost certainly played themselves out of contention on Tuesday evening, with Hurst only acknowledging the performance of second-half sub Ross Hannah in his post-match interview.
And as he prepares to assemble a squad capable of beating the Blues this afternoon, he admits that serious questions are over those who featured in the demoralising defeat.
"People might think I am but I'm not stupid and I can see what's happening and who's playing anything like, and Ross was one of those," he said.
"It's clear to see that he did well.
"I'll have to take him into consideration as well as the performances of some of the others.
"For large parts of the Halifax game, not everything was totally wrong.
"People have bad days but it's difficult to legislate for players not being able to kick a ball straight, kicking it straight out of play or not going with runners.
"Ultimately, it's a question of whether those are the right players and that's the honest truth."
