Graham Cummins says it is going to take a while for Exeter City to get used to life without Matt Grimes.
The talented teenage midfielder completed a £1.75m move to Swansea City earlier this month and the Grecians have lost the last three games without him in the side.
Grimes missed the 4-1 defeat at AFC Wimbledon after he claimed he was too ill to travel to the match, and had already completed his switch to South Wales before the Grecians suffered back-to-back home defeats against Accrington Stanley and Northampton Town.
Prior to that, Grimes had featured in every match for City as they suffered just two defeats in 17 league games.
Cummins says the change in results is no coincidence.
"Well he is a Premier League player, so you are obviously going to miss that," said Cummins. "Grimesy was quality. I think even earlier in the season, when he wasn't fully at it, we were losing some games.
"Then he started influencing matches and his level brought everyone else's level up. You can see why he is playing in the Premier League now, because he was one of our best players."
City's team was heavily shaped around Grimes, and Cummins admits that it is going to take time to resolve that issue.
"You don't just shape the team around such an influential player, lose him and expect things to fall into place," said Cummins. "It might take a few weeks to get used to things, but we have just got to move on without him.
"We have got three quality midfielders. We have got Ryan (Harley), Nobes (David Noble) and Sercs (Liam Sercombe) in there and they are all comfortable players on the ball.
"They haven't played together for a while though, because Nobes has been out himself. So it will take a little time to get a partnership going and get the understanding of each other's runs going and stuff like that."
Cummins, whose side travel to Mansfield Town this Saturday, said it was important City get back to winning ways soon.
They are still only two points outside the play-off places but, having gone seven games without a win at the start of the campaign, Cummins knows they can ill-afford another run like that.
"It is difficult for us because we have gone from a bad run, to a great run to a difficult patch again, but we have just got to try and put it right like we did earlier in the season," he said.
"It is January and we don't want the season to just fade out. We don't want to lose a couple more games because then all of a sudden you are looking down the table rather than up."
