Swansea City boss Michael Laudrup was prepared to take the blame for Sunday's 5-0 defeat at Liverpool.
The Danish tactician made a number of changes to his side, resting the likes of Michu and Ashley Williams, and starting with Angel Rangel, Nathan Dyer and Wayne Routledge on the bench in preparation for next weekend's Capital One Cup final with Bradford City.
Laudrup admits there may have been one or two selection errors but he was also critical of his players for failing to challenge a rampant Liverpool side at Anfield.
"We could have lost seven or eight nil easily had it not been for (goalkeeper) Michel Vorm and that is not good enough," Laudrup told Sky Sports.
"It is a little difficult to explain because I made a lot of changes so the first to blame is me because I picked the team.
"But I will not exclude players who were thinking about the game next week, which in a certain way is human logic because it will be the biggest game in the history of the club.
"One thing you can always ask is your team is competitive and after 45 minutes we were still in the game (at 1-0) but they came out and scored three goals in 10 minutes - you cannot do that.
"I don't want to believe that it was a lack of concentration because we had just talked about it in the dressing room after the first 45 minutes.
"I don't regret making the changes because I still think, until now, even when we lost we were competitive but (we were) never like this.
"I was sure this team could do well. It is obvious why Williams and Michu were not there.
"You can't put it only on those two, there were still some very good players on the pitch who had performed a lot of other times.
"I want to see this as a single accident maybe caused by what is going to happen in seven days - at least I hope so."
