Wellington Phoenix Ufuk Talay was at loss to describe his side's shock loss to bottom-of-the-ladder Melbourne Victory on Friday.
The 3-1 defeat at AAMI Park ends the Phoenix's four-game unbeaten run and leaves them in fourth place on the table with their nearest rivals having a game in hand.
It is also just their second loss in Australia this season, but for the opening 30 minutes, it looked as if they would pick up another away win.
Inform striker Oskar Zawada scored the game's opening goal, his fifth in as many games to give the Phoenix a dream start.
But the Victory responded with three unanswered goals with Bruno Fornaroli, Jake Brimmer, and Tomi Juric all finding the back of the net.
Talay was baffled by the team's performance after an encouraging start but believes pre-match nerves may have had an impact.
"I don't think we did enough to get the three points tonight," Talay told media post-game.
"I thought we started off the game quite well. I thought we were controlling the game with the ball.
"We scored a fantastic goal and got ourselves up and then just one moment in transition we allow them to break and let them come back into the game.
"But after that, I thought to be honest we were second best at most times.
"Even though I thought we weren't as good in the second half we still could have got ourselves back into the game and maybe got a point out of the game, but obviously the error for the third goal killed us.
"It was a weird one. In the changing room, it was quite quiet before the game.
"I don't know if the boys were a little bit timid tonight."
