Feel gutted and sick: Ex Luton Town and Bristol City man on one of toughest moments of his career after Portsmouth's Ipswich Town debacle

And the midfielder has demanded he and his team-mates do some soul-searching to find the answers for the performances they are serving up.

A 4-0 home thrashing at the hands of Paul Cook’s side made it one win in 12 for Danny Cowley’s side - and left them just four points off the League One drop zone.

It’s also eight goals shipped in two games as Cowley suffered the worst result of his Blue tenure for the second successive game.

Morrell fronted up after the debacle and gave an honest appraisal of where things stand - acknowledging the players are miles below the required level to represent Pompey.

He said: ‘We understand we’re a long way short of what it takes to play for this club.

‘It’s a tough moment, one of the toughest of my career.

‘I will wake up and feel gutted and sick.

‘It means a lot to me and there’s a lot of people and the manager who will feel the same.

‘We just desperately need to find the answers because we’re a long way short.

‘The goals win and lose you games, but we’re a long way short. We know that.

‘And we know what it takes to play for this football club and we’re finding that out.

‘We need to come through this and we will come through this, but there’s a lot of work to do and there’s a lot of soul searching.’

On what could have been a toxic night at Fratton Park, the home fans in the 16,301 crowd chose to continue backing their team despite what they were witnessing.

Morrell admitted the quality of their support made it all the harder when it came to what the players were serving up to them.

He added: ‘There’s nothing I can say about that which will make it better for the supporters.

‘You can apologise all you want, but there’s nothing I can say which will make it better for the supporters.

‘It’s the story of us at the moment.

‘It’s not as if the players aren’t hurting, but there’s nothing I can say to the supporters to make things any better.

‘I’ve found out pretty quickly we’ve got fantastic supporters here.

‘For me, personally, that’s what makes it more frustrating.

‘We understand that when we’re winning here this place will be a fantastic place to play football.

‘At the minute it’s not as bad as it could be, because they are sticking with us.

‘I’ve found out the fans are brilliant here and that’s a massive reason I wanted to come here.

‘Now I’m find out that in adversity they are still with us.’