Following the disappointing loss against Queens Park Rangers, substitute Gavin Rae pulled no punches with his honest assessment of the performance, admitting that the squad took full responsibility and are keen to make amends quickly.

He said: "After a defeat like that you just want another game as soon as possible, it's going to be a tough game at Villa but, it's better to get today out of our system as quickly as possible.

"It was frustrating watching from the bench because you obviously want the boys to do well and keep the momentum going, but we've not really got going at all today.

"I think all the players would agree that nothing happened for us today, nothing we tried came off - it was one of those games. The Reading game was a good battling performance, but today, losing two goals in the first half made it tough to come back from.

"The manager made it clear at half-time that he was going to change things soon after, depending on how it went. Obviously I was glad to get on, but I was disappointed that I couldn't help to change the result.

"The gaffer was obviously raging and he went through every player and told us what's what. We'll obviously keep what was said in house, but it just wasn't good enough. If you perform like that then there's nothing you can come back with.

"That's why it was so frustrating - when you're not playing well you certainly try your heart out and maybe the effort just wasn't there today.

"As players we've got to remember this result because we have to remember that we can't play that badly again if we want to do well in this league.

"That's certainly up there as one of our worst performances. Luckily there haven't been handfuls of performances like today, but it certainly wasn't a good day."