Flower, talking to reporters on Sunday, when England should have still been batting rather than having a day off, rejected talk of the team being 'rudderless' with no permanent head coach and was dismissive suggestions of disunity in the camp.
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But the former Zimbabwe Test player, who formally is still England's assistant coach, conceded that the dispute along with other distractions, such as the huge contracts being offered by Twenty20 cricket, may have had a cumulative effect.
"There might be an element of truth in that but in the end sportsmen have to deal with the challenge we're given and we have been given the challenge of a four-Test tour in West Indies.
"We failed the test in the first test but there are three Tests left and we can do something about it," he said.
What exactly they can do about it is much harder to answer however.
"I don't think we handled pressure very well," said Flower, "It was a great spell of bowling on a wearing pitch, they exploited that very well and probably better than we did at any time. The bottom line is that the players have to take responsibility for not handling the pressure.
"It's a very individual thing, how you handle pressure. They have all responded under pressure before but yesterday none of them did. I could go through a list of when they have done it at different times," he said.
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