Ian Burchnall sends brutally honest Notts County message after 'shock' Torquay hammering

Notts County head coach Ian Burchnall said the crushing 5-1 defeat at Torquay United must serve as a wake-up call to his side that they will have to earn the right to make the National League play-offs.

Burchnall admitted that his team were second best all over the pitch at Plainmoor, but instead of consigning the nightmare performance to history, he wants to carry it forward as evidence of what will happen if the Magpies are not totally focused on each of the seven games they face until the end of the season.

“We have to take our medicine and bounce back in the remaining games this season,” said a clearly angry and frustrated Burchnall after seeing his team outfought and outclassed by a side in which hat-trick hero Connor Lemonheigh-Evans and two-goal Armani Little were outstanding, linking well with striker Danny Wright to give Notts’ defenders a torrid afternoon.

“It’s a natural response to say let’s leave this performance here and put it behind us, but I’d rather take it with us.

“If we use it right maybe it will be a wake-up call at the right time that kicks us on for the rest of the season because if you don’t turn up every game is tough in this league.

“I want it to hurt and for us to use it as fuel to not let it happen again. We’ve got some big games coming up and we need that mindset.

“We were second best all over the pitch and credit to Torquay, who were on to every second ball and had runners everywhere. We didn’t match them in any department.

“We need to keep that in our mind going forward because if we think we are comfortable just sitting in the play-offs waiting for them to happen then we need to wake up.

“Today felt like a performance like we had come through all the difficult games and we came here