Reading captain Chris Gunter accepts he and his team-mates can have no objections to the criticism which is coming their way following their Carrow Road capitulation.

The play-off hopefuls became the first team to ever concede six goals in the first half of a game at Carrow Road during their 7-1 Championship embarrassment against Norwich City.

While the Royals' are still well placed to finish in the top six, Gunter admits the heavy defeat has left Jaap Stam's team feeling shell-shocked, after arriving in Norfolk on the back of a three-match winning streak.

'After the last couple of weeks, you don't envisage coming away and losing to that scoreline,' the Wales international right-back said. 'It does hurt and it's hard to take, and for sure it'll hurt for a good couple of days.

'Sometimes if you lose by a big scoreline you'll look back and think that they had the run of the ball slightly, that we lost 7-1 because we were unlucky – we lost because we were really poor and weren't good enough. That's the bottom line and we deserved to get well beat.

'It's a case of taking your medicine. It's not acceptable, but we have to take it. We'll take whatever's thrown at us in the next couple of days and we'll come back and move on.

'If you were to come in the changing room, you'd see a set of really disappointed people. It always is after a defeat but it does sting and hurt more after that sort of scoreline – we're professionals.'

Gunter was the defender penalised for the early shove on Nelson Oliveira which saw City open the scoring but says the Royals now need to shake off their humbling ahead of their final five matches, starting with a trip to Aston Villa on Saturday.

'We have to move on. One result isn't going to determine our season,' Gunter continued, speaking to his club's website. 'Once we've gone through it and worked out exactly what happened, in a strange way we will be better for it hopefully. It'll hurt for a couple of days but we have to get back on it and try and put it right.

'You do learn as a footballer that after time you do move on from a defeat. Some quicker than others, and this won't go away for a good few days. That's our job.'