Tottenham manager Thomas Frank and goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario apologised to fans following Sunday's hapless performance against Arsenal in the north London derby.
Spurs were beaten 4-1 at Emirates Stadium - their joint-heaviest Premier League defeat by the Gunners - with Eberechi Eze scoring a hat-trick against the club he almost joined in the summer.
Richarlison replied with a sensational 40-yard effort, but that was scant consolation for the visitors, whose expected-goals (xG) rating of 0.07 was the lowest in the top flight this season.
"It's extremely painful - I won't walk away from that," Frank, whose side have now lost three of their last five league games, told Sky Sports. "We can only apologise to the fans for that performance.
"It was a bad performance. I've seen a lot of character and fight in this team, but we didn't win enough duels."
Frank switched to a back three against the leaders, but the move failed to pay off as Arsenal cut through Spurs time and time again in the first half and deservedly led 2-0 at the break thanks to goals from Leandro Trossard and Eze.
The Dane changed the system at the break, but former Crystal Palace man Eze scored the third 35 seconds into the second half before completing the scoring 14 minutes from time.
"I will always take responsibility for my choice," Frank continued. "My view on it is that no matter what formation we played, we didn't have enough duels or intensity in the decisive moments, [which makes it] very difficult to win a football match."
Vicario echoed his manager's sentiments as he told Sky Sports: "We have to apologise to the people that support us every day. They expected us to fight and today we didn't fight. That's not negotiable at this level.
"We were too passive. The gameplan we prepared was different. The emotions are high, but we need cool heads."