Defender Michael Howard says there is no hiding place for Oxford United's players after their horror home performance against Burton.

The experienced left back, who is on loan from League Two club Morecambe until the end of the season, was arguably United's best player against the Brewers, and certainly the best of a shaky defence, although even he was easily rouned by sub Shaun Harrad when Keith Gilroy scored Albion's third goal late in the game.

Boss Darren Patterson has taken quite a bit of flak from fans following the performance, and the fact that the U's are languishing in 15th place in the Blue Square Premier, their lowest league position for 50 years.

Yet Howard says: "The manager can come out and hold his hand up, and say he takes responsibility, but it's down to the players.

"Once we cross that white line, it's down to the 11 players out there, and the subs as well.

"The gaffer, Mickey (Lewis) and Hodgy (Alan Hodgkinson), and the rest of the backroom staff, they give everything to this football club.

"There's things here that you wouldn't even dream of at other Conference clubs and, fair play to them, they push for that.

"The players need to start looking at themselves hard in the mirror and start getting results."

Howard did not want to single out individuals who made mistakes, but insists it is a collective responsibility to turn things around.

"We're all in this together," he said.

"One player makes a mistake and the whole team makes a mistake. You can't just drag people out and name names, they know themselves when they've made a mistake.

"We've got to put it right, we can't go hiding anywhere, everybody needs to be fighting for the club now. It's a bad situation obviously . . . nobody expects Oxford to be where they are."

While the errors early on against Burton were calamitous, by the same token United's second-half response was also disappointing.

"When you concede two silly goals against anyone it's difficult," Howard said.

"I don't care who it is, in this league it's hard to come back from two goals down against any team.

"You need an early goal and we didn't get it. We just huffed and puffed in the second half.

"We need to cut out giving away sloppy goals, and as a team. I thought we had. We'd had a few clean sheets, everything was going well, we just needed to fine-tune a few things and score a few more goals as a team.

"All their goals were good finishes and they took them well, but they were all mistakes from us. We've got to get back to being hard to beat as a team, and keep clean sheets."

But the Birkenhead-born former Swansea City star is very determined to help put things right, because he wants to be here next season.

"I want to stay," he said. "I want to play regular football. I'm here to do a job and that's what I want to do."