Ben Foster admitted Watford's confidence is "so, so crazy low" after their survival hopes were dented with a 4-0 defeat to Manchester City at Vicarage Road.
The Hornets entered the game following the sacking of Nigel Pearson, Watford's third managerial sacking of the season - a Premier League record.
Under-23s coach Hayden Mullins was promoted to the position of caretaker manager for the second time this season, but was unable to steer his side to a much-needed result against a side that beat them 8-0 in this season's reverse fixture.
Watford - who play Arsenal on Sunday in the final game of the season - remain in 17th place with the loss, still three points ahead of Aston Villa who play the Gunners in Tuesday's later fixture.
Defeat by such a margin also kept Bournemouth - who would have been relegated with a Watford win - in the battle to beat the drop.
Speaking after the game, Foster acknowledged that while playing against City is a "nightmare", his side approached the game with the wrong mentality.
"I don't think we helped ourselves," Foster told Sky Sports. "I don't think we did enough to do anything other than what the result suggested, to be honest.
"It's a case of just the confidence being so, so crazy low, which I don't know why it is. I think you get into a state of trying to minimise as much damage as you can, but that's such a dangerous way to approach games."
Asked if the events of the last few days had impacted the players, Foster replied: "No, not necessarily. I think we're well versed it what goes on at this club. It is what it is.
"You just get used to it in football nowadays; nothing seems to shock. You've just got to roll with the punches and you can't ever blame anything other than your own performances and we all have to look at ourselves.
"We've got a massive game on Sunday, and that's all we've got to look at now."
Foster also admitted his side seemed to be playing to keep the score down, rather than going for the win.
"We didn't want it to be but it definitely turned out like that," Foster added.
"That's the way it looked from where I was standing.
"That, for me, is not right. I don't think you should go into any game thinking about damaged limitations, that's just ridiculous.
'You've got to give it a go but we didn't do that; I thought we looked scared."
