• FA Cup

Allen: Cup shock worst feeling in football

Oldham completed a weekend of FA Cup shocks by eliminating Liverpool © Getty Images

Enlarge

Related Links

• News: Inter open to Coutinho move to Liverpool
  
• News: Liverpool trio in line for recall
  
• News: Oldham & Leeds shock Reds & Spurs; Chelsea escape
  
• News: Rodgers points finger at youngsters
  
• Profile: Steven Gerrard

Liverpool midfielder Joe Allen has admitted the club got what they deserved after crashing out of the FA Cup at Oldham.

Brendan Rodgers' side were embarrassed by their League One opponents as they lost 3-2 in Sunday's fourth-round tie at Boundary Park.

It was the first time Liverpool had lost an FA Cup tie to a team from outside the top two divisions since Bolton won a third-round replay at Anfield in January 1993, and Allen is not in a hurry to experience something similar again.

"It's the worst feeling in football," Allen told the Liverpool Echo. "These are the kind of games where you have to be on it mentally for the whole game but we started slowly. To concede three goals in the manner we did was bitterly disappointing. We wanted to do well in the FA Cup but now we're out.

"I don't think we under-estimated them. But, no disrespect to Oldham, when you've been knocked out by a team in League One, then something has definitely gone wrong somewhere. It hurts and I feel sorry for the fans. Once again, they turned up in their thousands and they have gone home very disappointed."

Rodgers made six changes for the game, mindful of a Premier League trip to Arsenal on Wednesday, but Allen insisted that was no excuse for such a poor performance.

"We still had a very strong side out," he said. "The manager made changes but for those of us who came in it was a chance to impress and stake a claim. A lot of people will look at themselves and be disappointed that they didn't take that chance as well as they could have."

For Allen, who scored the Reds' second goal, the breaking of his Liverpool goalscoring duck brought no joy whatsoever.

"I can't take any satisfaction from that goal," he said. "It's irrelevant almost. Now we have gone out, it means nothing. At the time, it gave us the chance to get back in the game but we couldn't find another goal.

"We picked up in the second half after Steven Gerrard and Stewart Downing came on. Stevie's shot hitting the crossbar at the end summed up our day in many ways. We gave away sloppy goals. You can't give any team a 3-1 cushion like that. We gave ourselves a mountain to climb."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.