Humiliating – that’s the only way to describe Braintree Town’s biggest and most embarassing defeat at National League level.

The Iron were comprehensively beaten 6-1, at the Crabble on Saturday, leaving manager Hakan Hayrettin with a huge problem to revive his players in time for their next game at Woking on Tuesday night.

It was a shambolic performance, with players lacking ideas and cohesion, and leaves the team stuck in the relegation zone.

This was despite taking the lead on 12 minutes, courtesy of Bournemouth loanee Sam Matthews’s fine shot into the top corner.

However, once former Iron defender Aswad Thomas had equalised six minutes later, it was all one-way traffic.

The home side were given so much space and time, every time they went forward, and scored four more goals before the interval, effectively ending the game as a contest and leaving the Iron players shattered.

The goal glut was led by home striker Ricky Miller who had a field day, having not been closed down all afternoon.

He had scored a hat-trick by the interval and added his fourth, three minutes after the restart.

It was a shameful all-round performance by Town and had the home side not taken their foot off the accelerator in that second period they could well have scored more goals.

It left Hayrettin a shattered man afterwards and apologising to the loyal band of travelling fans who witnessed the debacle.

“The players got it all wrong and for a start didn’t do the basics. They allowed the opposition players to have so much room and time, did not close them down quickly enough and allowed them free shots at our goal,” said Hayrettin, who will watch the Dover defeat with his squad this evening, prior to tomorrow night’s game.

“I had to have a real go at all of them at half time and in the second half I felt we did improve, showed more cohesion and created chances, but when you’re 5-1 at half time it’s a mountain to climb.

“But it’s done now, there’s nothing we can do about it. We have to shake ourselves down and look ahead to Tuesday’s game and get back to the way we played last week in beating Bromley.”

With experienced goalkeeper Will Puddy returning to Bristol Rovers and central defender Jack Cowgill going back to Barnsley after their respective loan periods, Hayrettin brought in young keeper Joe Taylor from Dartford who had an unfortunate afternoon, conceding five goals in the first 40 minutes, although he was not solely to blame.

Hayrettin has to bring in new players who can play and perform consistently at this level if the Iron are to move up away from the relegation zone.

Miller scored on 22, 26 and 33 minutes to complete his hat-trick with Jack Parkinson adding the home side’s fifth on 40 minutes, but by then the Iron players were completely demoralised.

Iron did try and play some football in the second half with Simeon Akinola and former Colchester defender George Elokobi going close but they were never going to get back in the game.

Joe Maybanks also came off the bench with 18 minutes to go and three times made good, forward runs but each time a defender managed to clear the ball to safety.