Brantham boss Paul Abrahams admitted it was a “horrendous feeling” watching his side capitulate when losing 6-0 at home to Felixstowe & Walton on Saturday.

He warned the positions of some of his players are now under threat ahead of their rematch with the Seasiders in the League Cup semi-final on March 11.

“You set things up against teams at the top end and it proved in a 45-minute snap where we have lost the game that we did not match up anywhere near to our opponents,” the former Colchester United player said.

“If you don’t compete and don’t do the basics you are going to get punished by the good sides, and Felixstowe are not a bad side. The game was over after 10 minutes.

“Both myself, the coaching staff and the players have got a huge amount of pride, so it was a horrendous feeling.

“We just defended as a unit very bad .And we couldn’t string three passes together when we did have it; they played the system much better than what we did. They sucker-punched us with two early goals and we were chasing it from there on in. If I had 15 to 20 fingers then I might be able to point them all at the things that went wrong in the first half.

“People are playing for places for that semi-final now. “The second-half performance was always going to be better – it couldn’t get any worse. Yes we got a positive reaction, but was I pleased? Not really.”

Meanwhile, Felixstowe & Walton four-goal hero Ben Cranfield said his team had advanced their case as a top-three side.

“I just think we were hungrier than them,” he said.

“They had one or two missing but that does not undermine what we did. The work-ethic in the first half was immense.

“It was a great victory for us. The way we are drilled by the management team is not to get carried away with any result, but this definitely sends out a message to the league that we are focussed and determined and we want to do the best we can.

“I think we scored some very good goals and pressed high up the pitch.

“I wouldn’t like to say they were poor in defence, I would like to say we were good in attack.

“I haven’t scored four in a while so I was personally really happy too.”