Tottenham Hotspur captain Younes Kaboul has called on the club's players to be braver, saying the squad needed "more personality" after they slumped to a 2-1 defeat to Newcastle at White Hart Lane on Sunday.
Spurs led at the break thanks to an Emmanuel Adebyor header, but conceded an equaliser within seconds of the restart when Sammy Ameobi struck.
Within 12 minutes of that goal Mauricio Pochettino's team went behind as Ayoze Perez headed home, and Kaboul described the situation as "unacceptable."
"At the start of the second half, it was blackout," The Evening Standard reported him as saying.
"We came back on to the pitch not thinking, missed the pass and Sammy Ameobi went through and scored.
"We have to be braver and more focused. At this level, there is no mercy -- if you're not focused, brave and ready, you pay the price. We should not concede goals like that. It's not acceptable."
The defeat dropped Spurs -- who have won only one Premier League game since August -- into the bottom half of the table.
And Kaboul voiced his anxiety that they had been so shaken by the Newcastle equaliser, saying: "After that, we looked defeated on the pitch.
"Newcastle saw that and they thought: 'Yeah, why not? We're going to win this game.' And they did it.
"Do we need more personality in the squad? Maybe, yes. When you concede a goal straight after coming back on the pitch, you need to reply immediately. You need to send a big signal.
"We need to be more consistent and more mature. It's about knowing how to control the game, kill the game, knowing how to defend all together in certain phases of the game and to be more confident, too."
Pochettino also said Newcastle's equaliser had unhinged his side, adding: "It was a shock because, after that, it all changed.''
