St Albans City joint-manager James Gray admitted his team held an inquest after their dismal 6-0 thrashing at Whitehawk on Saturday.

The Saints are third bottom in the National League South after their latest setback.

Gray said: “I’m not going to hide behind anything. I’ll take a lot of the criticism on my chin and try to protect the boys as much as I can.

“But we’ve had an inquest in there after the game and there’s a lot that needs putting right. Whitehawk are a very good side but we made them look far too good. We came up short in every single department and I include myself in this.”

Whitehawk took the lead through Danny Mills and made it 2-0 before half time when Sam Deering scored.

The hosts made it 3-0 when David Martin netted from close range. Whitehawk were not finished and scored again when Nick Arnold curled his shot past Joe Welch.

The Saints were reduced to ten men when Ben Martin was sent off after throwing Mills to the ground.

Whitehawk punished their opponents again through a deflected strike from Stephane Ngamvoulou before the final goal was scored by Deering.

Gray said: “If you’d heard my team talk all I wanted before the game was to get in at half time with a clean sheet. I had a game plan to try to keep it tight in the first half and have a few players to bring on to try to nick it.

“They were very deadly with their finishing and caught us on the counter-attack but two goals we’ve really gifted them. You can’t legislate for the errors we’ve made. Whatever could go wrong went wrong today.”

St Albans travel to Southern League Division One Central Petersfield Town in the third qualifying round of the FA Cup on Saturday.

There is a team and supporters' coach going to Petersfield and it will depart at 11am from the Clarence Park entrance to the ground.  

Since the coach has a limited number of seats available, anyone going should book as early as possible.

To reserve £10 seats, call Ian Rogers on 07714 145862.