ARBROATH manager, John McGlashan, speaking after Wednesday's match said that everyone was devastated by the result.
He said: "We came to Montrose on the back of a great result against East Fife and managed to completely reverse that. You have to take victories and defeats and not get too high or too low, but some of them are harder to take than others and this one certainly is today.
"I think it is all the more disappointing because we have so many good players at the club and when things go wrong, as they did today, we look to all the players to stand up and be counted.
By half time, the game was all over. There was no way back, it was just a case of seeing if we could stem the tide and see if we could nick a goal. Ultimately it was a very bad day's work by everybody."
Mr McGlashan said that, the way the game was going, he had no option but to make wholesale changes in the second half and there was always the possibility that someone would go off.
He continued: "Bad luck did not come into today's result, it was just rank bad. I won't beat about the bush, there is no reason to hide the truth, it was just rank bad play.
"When you lose a goal like the first today, well, you do not see too many like that. That was just a horror goal and it gave Montrose a lift. Then we conceded again and again. From being so tight at the back the week before, we went to being wide open.
"Defending was very, very shoddy and ultimately we gave them opportunities to score by giving away free kicks on a regular basis. With the wind in their favour they were sending balls into the box and their players were sharper than ours.
"The third goal was rank bad defending at the back post and at the fourth the wall disintegrated at the free kick. I cannot put my finger on what is wrong and say, yes, that is something we have to work on.
"Now it is a big ask for Saturday. In reality, this was one defeat in a 36 game campaign. Whether you get beaten one nil or five nil, it is hard to take, but obviously harder to take against Montrose.
"We have had success against Montrose in the past and no doubt we will have success against them in the future but as things stand at the moment, the last thing we need to do is go into Saturday's game against Dumbarton and be negative, downbeat and downcast. If we are like that, Dumbarton will come to our place and fancy their chances.
"It will take big hearts between now and Saturday and certainly for Saturday's game. It will be obvious to all and sundry: you will see the players who have got the bigger hearts and the ones who do not. The players who will want to make up for today's defeat will turn up on Saturday and will not be giving two thoughts about what happened on Wednesday. All they will be thinking about is Dumbarton and the next 90 minutes."
Mr McGlashan revealed that, after the East Fife game, he had considered strengthening one or two areas of the team. He went on: "It just goes to show how unpredictable and inconsistent we are week to week. We were saying, we have a decent team here and don't need to bring in too many new players and after today you could possibly bring in 12 or 15 new players. We could have a whole squad after watching that.
"However, we would be silly to have a knee-jerk reaction on the basis of our performance against Montrose. We have our eye on two or three players but we will obviously have to see if we can agree terms and perhaps move one or two of our players on to create openings.
"We will certainly be looking to freshen up the squad now. Most of the players have had ample opportunity to stake their claim for a place in the team but if I am not getting the consistency, it is obviously not working."