Luke O’Brien admits City face a long road to redemption after they blew up spectacularly against lowly Barnet.

A three-goal blast midway through the second half left the Bantams reeling against a side who had not won away since March.

City are now on their travels for four of the next five games, starting with lengthy treks to Oxford and Aldershot.

And left back O’Brien conceded that they will have to regain Saturday’s lost ground the hard way.

He said: “We’ve got a tough couple of weeks ahead, with a difficult game at Oxford and then going back down south three days later against Aldershot.

“But if we want to put this behind us, we’ve got to go down there and look to turn them both over.

“Everyone’s pretty gutted in the changing room and we feel for the fans as well. They must have thought that we were going to keep pushing up the league and we’d be just outside the play-offs if we’d won.

“We all wanted to win three on the bounce and keep unbeaten in 2011 but now that great result against Bury doesn’t mean anything.”

Luke Oliver put City ahead right on half-time but they collapsed after Rob Kiernan headed into his own net, quickly leaking further goals to Anwar Uddin and Ricky Holmes.

But O’Brien insisted the sudden slump was not just down to the blunder by the young sub.

“The tide turned after the own goal but you can’t blame it on anyone,” he added.

“It’s unlucky for Rob but that happens to the best of people. Unfortunately, Luke Oliver then got beaten for a corner and their third was a great goal from a counter-attack. It knocked the stuffing out of us.

“It’s really disappointing and we’ve got to come back strongly at Oxford. They are going to be raring to go after we beat them by five here but we’ve got to be ready for it.”

Peter Taylor was fuming with the defending for the first two goals which undid all the good work from last weekend’s win double.

The City chief said: “We were outstanding in the second half against Bury last week and I don’t expect to play like that all the time. But I do expect us to be able to defend a throw-in and a corner much better than we did.

“I’m sure (Barnet boss) Paul (Fairclough) couldn’t believe how easy the first two goals were. But that’s where we are.

“It’s a very frustrating day and we’ve got to learn from it.”