Crewe Alexandra captain Harry Pickering says that everyone has to use the feeling felt in the dressing room after Saturday’s 6-0 defeat to make sure it never occurs again.

Pickering spoke on behalf of the dressing room following Oxford’s blistering win at Gresty Road and says that the team has to learn from the mistakes made and take that into tonight’s game against Portsmouth.

The Chester-based defender described the performance ‘as completely unacceptable’ and the most hurtful he has felt in his young career.

Pickering told the club’s official website: “Saturday’s performance was completely unacceptable from everyone. It was a really poor afternoon from all of us.

“The dressing room was very down afterwards because it came on the back of two decent performances against Hull and MK Dons and I don’t think anyone saw that performance coming.

“Now we have another tough game coming up against Portsmouth but it is a chance to put things right.

“We have to learn from what happened on Saturday and take that very quickly into the Portsmouth game.

“The management were not happy and that is to be expected. The manager has expressed his feelings and he has every right to do that because we were so poor as a collective against Oxford.

“We have to take the pointers they have given us, learn from that and take things on board.

“We cannot have that feeling again. “

He added: “We have been too inconsistent lately. We cannot win one, lose one, win one, lose one. It is important to become more consistent in the remaining games and finish the season as strongly as we can.”