Chatham Town Women’s 8-0 defeat on Sunday at home to Portsmouth has been labelled as an embarrassment by their interim boss.

Jesus Cordon has made it clear to the players at the club that if they don’t want to be there - they should leave.

“It was embarrassing,” he said, having seen his side concede four times in each half at home.

“It was totally unacceptable, very disappointing for me and I am disappointing for all the players.

“You can not understand things, can not understand tactics, but what you cannot do is not put everything into it, don’t show passion, desire, commitment, aggression, don’t run, don’t work hard.

“Even if you have a bad game, you can lose, but not 8-0 and I feel embarrassed, it is the biggest defeat in my career.

“I have played against the best teams in the country (while a coach at Lewes), teams like Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Man United, and I never got an 8-0, Lewes are not a big club either. Yes, we lost the games, but we put in the fight and the desire, it was different. This was very bad.”

Cordon believes only those who want to be there can help turn their season around.

Chatham have picked up just one point from five games in FA Women’s Premier Division South.

He said: “When you reflect on things, you probably realise the problems were bigger than you thought at first, and deeper.

“I am not saying it is not fixable, I think it is fixable, it is not something that will happen overnight, it is something that can be fixed with time, with changes and we have to do some changes.

“The first thing we have to do is look in the mirror and be honest with ourselves and see if we want to be here, if we want to work hard, if we want to keep going forward with this situation and get out of it.

“If the players don’t want it, there is nothing you can do about it, nothing you can coach to make them get out of the situation.

“They need to look in the mirror and say, ‘it was embarrassing and I am going to get out of this, I will work hard and commit myself to get better’, but they need to want to do that, if they don’t want then there is nothing I can do.

“We have put it to them clearly, if someone doesn’t want to be here, we don’t want them here.

“If some players, for whatever reason, don’t want to be here, then the door is open, we get other players, better or worse, but players who want to be here, will work hard and they will learn, they put everything in.

“The way it has to be fixed is first as individuals, and then as a team, but first we need to look in the mirror and see what we want.”

Chatham don’t have a game this weekend as scheduled opponents Cardiff City have players away on international duty.

It leaves Cordon time to work with the players. On Tuesday, former captain Vicky Ashton-Jones was alongside him at training.

Cordon said: “We trained and obviously, it was a bit down at first. Vicky has had an amazing career, someone that they respect as a person and player.

“She came to the session because she is helping me out when she can. She had words with them, I think they took them, it wasn’t nice, the messages were what had to be said.

“It is about desire, aggression and commitment and it is not only on the pitch, we can work on the things on the pitch, I will show and explain, that is fine, the hard part is the other one.”

Cordon says he’s not afraid to make changes himself, if needed.

“I don’t have a problem with that,” he said. “If I have to make decisions on players that I don’t think are giving everything, I will make them, it doesn’t matter who the player is.”

Chatham’s next scheduled game is on Sunday, October 1, at home to London Seaward in the FAWNL Plate competition.