Manchester City's senior players called a crunch meeting last month after falling down the Premier League table.
Despite a strong start to the season, Pep Guardiola's charges went through a period in the league where they failed to win four games in a row.
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The league champions draw with Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur before they suffered a 1-0 defeat to Aston Villa, which left in fourth spot at the time.
City defender Nathan Ake has now revealed the captains called a meeting where everyone was honest with each other.
"We had a big get together organised by the captains and we had a good talk with each other. Not to hammer each other but to be honest that everyone has to look at themselves to see what we can do better because this is not what we want," Telegraph Sport.
"We want to win games and get the season going again and we had to do it now while there were still so many games to go. The time was still there to do it because we would rather have had the conversation then than in five weeks when we could have been even more points behind.
"We know we weren't playing too badly. But we weren't getting the points and all of us expect from each other that we get points, we defend better and look at yourself for why we are conceding so many goals.
"They weren't necessarily great goals [from the opponents] - many were deflections or those kind of things - but it still happened so [we asked] why did it happen this year and not last year? We talked with each other about it to try to understand and make sure everyone was on the same page - that we don't just play the victim card of deflections or a difficult moment."
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