Assistant manager Mickey Lewis totally supported boss Chris Wilder’s angry reaction to the way Oxford United finished their 4-0 win over Eastbourne on Saturday.

And he said the rest of the coaching staff felt exactly the same because the players’ levels had dropped unacceptably.

Wilder refused to let the players speak to the media after the match because he wanted them to focus their minds properly on getting right again for Mansfield tomorrow.

Lewis said: “Standards are very high here.

“We set very high standards in training and if we’d performed in training as we did in the second half it would have been the same result (a rollicking).

“Yes, you can say it was 4-0 and we’re top of the league, but I’ve got to say, it wasn’t good enough second half.

“If we’d passed the ball properly it would have been different.

“I think we did three or four times in the second half, and nearly scored every time we did it, and that’s not disrespectful to Eastbourne, it’s just that we have the ability to do that.

“They could have scored three or four times themselves. I know people will say you were 3-0 up, but it can so easily go 3-1, which then becomes 3-2 and 3-3 very quickly. People have to realise that.

“So me and Andy (Melville) are the same, we’re very disappointed with the second half.”

Nevertheless, it was the first time in their history United have kept six successive clean sheets – nine hours of football without letting in a goal.

“I would say the first five were excllent, the sixth we were lucky to keep a clean sheet,” Lewis said.

“The manager was very upset after the game, but he’s not alone. The three of us and Hodgy (goalkeeping coach Alan Hodgkinson) were very disappointed with the performance.

“What we’re trying to say is that standards have to keep high.

“If we do that on Tuesday night, it won’t be 4-0 to Oxford, it’ll be the other way around.

“The players have to take it on the chin.

“It’s not done for any other reason than to make us a better football team, and to make us stronger mentally.

“We keep saying it . . . we’re not taking our foot off the pedal.

“If we can go and win every game, and we’ll obviously try and do that, we can get as far away from other clubs as possible.”

The former combative midfielder admitted he would have loved the scenario in the second half when he was a player.

“I would have fancied it,” he said.

“For someone like myself, who never scored goals, I would have relished it as the chance to get one myself.

“That’s the thing, we’re saying this because we believe we’ve got such good players here.

“If we didn’t have such good players, we wouldn’t be top of the league – and we want to stay there.

“We don’t want to be fighting down at fifth or sixth – we want to stay top.”