WORCESTER City's abject display in slumping to a 3-1 defeat at 10-man Alfreton brought an apology from manager Andy Preece.

The City boss was clearly stunned by his team's woeful display despite having an extra man for the best part of 80 minutes.

Leaving the players with a few choice words still ringing in their ears, Preece emerged from the dressing room to face the music.

He said: "It was a shocking performance. All through the team it was an unacceptable performance. The players know that they haven't performed and I 'm just looking on in disbelief at the way we've played.

"For the fans who've travelled, and they've been fantastic all season and got behind us, they've just been totally let down and I can only apologise to them for the poor performance.

"I apologise on the players' behalf as well because they should come out and apologise for that performance because it was just not acceptable."

Craig Wilding's free-kick gave City parity for a brief spell following Christopher Walton's dismissal in the first-half before Brian Cusworth struck twice in five minutes.

The manager added: "It was a good job they did go down to 10 men because I hate to think what the scoreline might have been.

"If we had had seven players playing with one leg they could have done better than we did.

"After the last five games when we were unbeaten we've just let everybody down.

"I don't know where it's come from but we just didn't look up for the battle, we were devoid of ideas.

"Every player was off their game. There was no passion, no desire and we were beaten by a team that wanted it more and that's a sad indictment on any team.

"It's one game in six but it was an absolute shocker so you can't take it lightly but straight after the game I just feel sick inside after that performance and I just hope it hurts the players as much as it hurt the fans and me.

"I am pretty low at this minute but I have to be sensible and reflect on things as the week goes on and not be too hasty and look at the overall picture. But if it was on today you'd be going out and looking for 11 new players."

Yet Preece insists his team will be capable of motivating themselves for Satu-rday's tough FA Cup clash at Tamworth.

He said: "They'll raise themselves and we'll get it sorted.

"That has got to hurt and if it doesn't there will be changes. If we don't see a reaction from that then there has to be changes."

He added: "I'm not going to blame individuals, at the end of the day it's a team game and we defended poorly as a team for the goals and it's just not good enough."

Emeka Nwadike and Ryan Clarke both made low keys returns to their former club and the manager did not discount that as a factor in the showing.

Preece said: "We did talk about how they might be pumped up because of that and we'd have to be ready to match that and we weren't ready for it.

"Alfreton were definitely pumped up for it, there's no doubt about it and you wonder how they were in the bottom four before today."