Beleaguered Simon Halsey reflected on the toughest week of his football life after seeing ‘shambolic’ Whitstable ship 11 goals in two home games.

The Oystermen boss saw his side capitulate against unfancied Ryman League Division 1 South visitors Walton Casuals on Saturday, conceding seven goals in the final 37 minutes, and then three more against fellow strugglers Hythe on Tuesday, leaving Whitstable 10 points adrift of safety.

Halsey admitted: “Saturday was my worst day in football. Massively. I’ve never come across anything like that in my life.

“The philosophy is to try and forget about it, but it doesn’t go out of your mind, it’s there, it’s not a nice thing to have there, and now we’ve gone and conceded another three.”

He added: “Tuesday was a hard one. I obviously wanted to get into the next game quickly, but as much as you try to dust off a scoreline like Saturday, it maybe had more of a psychological effect on everyone, and myself, than I thought.

“We need to look at is the psychology side of it. We are a young side and nobody - me included - has emotionally experienced that before in their football career.

“Some of them are very young to have been through that and perhaps that psychological effect is going to be tough to get out of such a young side.”

Hopes had been high that Town had turned the corner after last Wednesday’s epic 3-2 derby win at Ramsgate, however Halsey claimed: “It’s been a mad week. We were taking little steps forward steps, but now we’ve gone backwards.

“Perhaps we have to go back to the drawing board again after coming from being the Ragged Rovers side we were left with (when Halsey took over in September).

“We got ourselves into a good place, with compliments from sides we were playing against, other teams with scouts there, but we have just gone backwards again.”

Town fell behind inside a minute against the Cannons and Halsey added: “It was not the greatest start to the night after our shambolic display on Saturday.

“We had some good patches, we had a lot of nice possession and passed it around, but none of it in the final third. I’m racking my brains to try and work out why this is happening.

“I need to work it out very quickly because we’re in a period of the season where I thought we’d be putting points on the board.

“I’ve got to roll my sleeves up, go hard and be positive around the lads, if I don’t then they’ll just sink quicker than they are at the moment.”

Town visit Whyteleafe on Saturday (3pm).