West Bromwich Albion defender George Campbell said the Championship strugglers have to take control of their destiny and not pin their survival hopes on favours from other teams.
Albion suffered another big setback on Saturday with a 2-1 defeat at second-bottom Oxford United as James Morrison's began his latest spell as interim boss.
A seventh defeat in an 11-match winless league run, stretching back to 29 December, also pulled fellow strugglers Oxford within three points of the Baggies, and deepened concerns around The Hawthorns
"No-one would have predicted this in pre-season, but we don't have time to feel sorry for ourselves or to sulk," Campbell told BBC Radio WM.
"At this point of the season it's not about the manager, we just need to take accountability and show our quality in front of goal."
West Brom remain a point and place outside the relegation zone with 11 games of the season remaining after third-bottom Leicester City lost at home to Norwich City.
Their place outside the drop zone is only courtesy of the Foxes' own poor current form and six-point deduction, which they are appealing against.
"We need to head into the last few games of the season clear of that and not just hoping other teams have bad results," Campbell said.
"It's too late to rely on other teams. There's good teams around us, like Leicester is not a team that should be down there, and there are other teams that shouldn't be down there, so we can't expect anything from other results, we need to perform ourselves."