JAKE Wright called on Oxford United ’s players to speak up as they attempt to stop the rot in time for tomorrow’s trip to Cheltenham Town.

The U’s were second best as they slumped to a 4-0 defeat at Burton Albion on Saturday.

There were virtually no positives to come out of the performance, which sealed a third straight league defeat.

Wright, the United skipper, wants constructive criticism from the rest of the squad to solve the team’s problems.

He said: “We spoke about different things in the changing room afterwards.

“There have been a few words said between the lads, I don’t know what the fans think, but it hurts every single player to lose.

“The effort is never something you question, everybody wants to win, but for some reason we didn’t win enough tackles, headers, anything.

“We need to speak about it to sort it out.

“Sometimes you have to have a go at each other and people have to take it in the right manner.”

And Wright shared U’s boss Chris Wilder ’s concerns on the side’s worrying lack of mental strength.

The defender added: “We’ve let the fans down, we let the gaffer and the coaching staff down.

“We prepare right all week and then I don’t think we turned up.

“As soon as they scored, which was a great goal, to be fair, we went under a little bit. I’m gutted and it hurts me a lot that we’ve conceded 11 goals in three league games.

“Everybody wants to do well, but at the moment we look vulnerable – we need to sort it out for Tuesday night.”