The Hammers saw their troubles deepen at Anfield on Saturday, with a 3-0 defeat keeping them rooted to the foot of the Premier League table.
They never got going on Merseyside, despite their dire need for points, with their inability to defend set-pieces and prevent crosses from coming into the box costing them dear.
Cole, who formed part of a toothless attack, admits the woeful display has left the camp 'deflated', with no end to an alarming slump in sight.
"That was more than a tough afternoon, that was diabolical," the England international fumed in the East London Advertiser.
"We can come here and talk a good game and say we are going to do this to them and come with a game plan, but at the end of the day, we didn't even turn up.
"In the first 10 minutes we had lost the game, psychologically anyway. I'm lost for words now, I can't speak too much because I get emotional with these things and it gets on my nerves and I don't want to talk too much about certain things. We are deflated, everyone's deflated."
Manager Avram Grant has come under fire of late, with his position reported to be under threat, and Cole has done little to help the cause of his beleaguered boss by questioning the tactics adopted at Anfield.
He added: "We tried to get them on the back foot and just play our game really. No counter attack, we were going to go out there and put them under pressure, but that didn't even happen so it looked like we came here to defend.
"The first 10 minutes we dropped so deep. I can only remember one time when the ball came up to me and I kind of miscontrolled it, but we still retained possession, then I looked to my left and there was no-one attacking - there was nobody there at all.
"I thought okay, this is the kind of game it is going to be. I've been up here before and it has been that sort of game, but we did have more chances. I didn't get a sniff, I think I got one header.
"When we changed to 4-4-2, I felt more comfortable because someone was up there with me and I felt that we were starting to get on the ball a little bit more, we started to try and make something happen, try to work a little deeper and play Freddie (Piquionne) in or something.
"But then I got taken off and I was like okay, that's not what you want me to do. They would rather I stood up there on my own, trying to make nothing happen.
"The game plan was for me to stay as the longest person away from everybody and try and hit me on the diagonal or something, but we weren't even doing that, so that went out of the window and we didn't have a plan B."
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