Notts County boss Shaun Derry blamed a "crazy" first-half spell for his team's 3-0 defeat at Oldham.
Shaun Derry: Rues 'crazy' five minutes
County conceded two goals in less than three minutes as a poor recent run - which has brought just one victory in 10 games - continued at SportsDirect.com Park.
Will Hayhurst almost put Derry's side in front but Oldham struck on the half-hour when George Elokobi scored with a glancing header from Mike Jones' left-wing cross.
And the Latics lead was quickly doubled as Amari Morgan-Smith raced behind the Notts defence to coolly slot in from 14 yards.
Garry Thompson forced a good save from home goalkeeper Jake Kean but the second half was one-way traffic and only the heroics of veteran keeper Roy Carroll prevented the visitors from suffering a bigger defeat.
Carroll produced a string of outstanding saves to deny Dominic Poleon, Carl Winchester and Danny Philliskirk, while Oldham's Jonathan Forte hit the crossbar with an overhead kick.
The Latics sealed victory in the 73rd minute when Connor Brown crossed from the left and top scorer Forte headed in his 14th goal of the season.
Derry said: "At 0-0 we were starting to make our mark, but then we had a crazy five minutes when people didn't do their jobs.
"At the end of it we were 2-0 down and chasing the game and we never recovered from that.
"We've come to a stage where too often I'm expressing disappointment with the goals we are conceding. I sound like a broken record, but we are giving them away. Fair credit to Oldham because they fully deserved their win, but we gifted it to them.
"We had the power in the game, but two ridiculous situations changed the complexion and then their third goal again showed our frailties.
"The guys need to take more responsibility, individually and collectively. I look at the league table and still think we can take sixth spot, but we have to change our ways and be tougher to beat."
Oldham manager Lee Johnson was delighted with his team's performance after the Latics picked up their first home win since November.
He said: "We've got five games in 15 days, so it was really important to start that period with a win.
"My only disappointment is that we didn't convert more chances because we had a lot of them over the course of the game.
"The boys worked their socks off and we've taken six points out of the last nine, which is not a bad return.
"What we need is consistency. There's a 10-team league all going for the play-off places and we'll need to finish on top of that.
"After two horror shows (losing 4-0 against Yeovil and 7-0 at MK Dons in December), we changed what needed changing and have done much better.
"We won't get ahead of ourselves because there can be a bit of complacency, but the clean sheet is a boost and we need to keep performing to this standard."