Alex Dyer is hoping that the 3-0 defeat his West Ham United reserve side suffered on Tuesday night will act as a motivation for his young side.
A Portsmouth team featuring the likes of Antti Niemi, Steve Finnan and Frederic Piquionne proved too strong, but rather than letting their heads drop, manager Dyer wants the defeat to spur his squad into working twice as hard on the training pitch at Chadwell Heath.
"They've got to look at themselves, I'm looking at myself to see what I can do to put it right and hopefully they will do the same. All I want them to do is train, show a good appetite for the game and work hard on the things that they haven't done against Portsmouth and work on the weaknesses in their games.
"They need to watch the DVD we will be giving them, learn from it, watch the first-team, watch other teams, watch good players and try to improve. That's all it's about."
Dyer will have plenty of time to get that message across with a near three-week break before the reserves' next game, a trip to Chelsea on Monday 19 October.