Allen: The worst feeling in football
Joe Allen admits Liverpool were left hurting following Sunday's shock FA Cup exit at Oldham Athletic – but insists they cannot afford to dwell on the 3-2 defeat with crucial away trips to Arsenal and Manchester City on the horizon.
A brace from Matt Smith and Reece Wabara's header secured victory for the Latics at Boundary Park, rendering efforts from Luis Suarez and Allen meaningless as the Reds exited the competition at the fourth-round stage.
"Everyone in the dressing room is completely devastated," Allen told the Liverpool Echo.
"It's the worst feeling in football. These are the kind of games where mentally you have to be on it 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 underestimated 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. When you are representing Liverpool, you represent them. Once again they turned up in their thousands and they have gone home very disappointed."
Brendan Rodgers made six changes to his starting XI for the trip to the League One side, but still included the likes of Suarez, Daniel Sturridge and Martin Skrtel in the team that took to the pitch - and Allen believes Liverpool had enough quality on show to have got the job done.
"We still had a very strong side out," he added. "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."
Allen's late volley reduced the deficit to 3-2 and gave Liverpool genuine hope of salvaging a replay.
It was the Wales midfielder's first goal for the club - but he can take nothing from the effort.
Allen said: "I can't take any satisfaction from that goal.
"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."
Liverpool return to action on Wednesday evening with a trip to Arsenal before travelling to Manchester City on Sunday.
Allen stressed the importance of the Reds getting their Oldham frustrations out of their system before the journey to London.
He concluded: "We've got to move on from this. We have got two massive league games and we have to get back to the way we have been playing recently.
"In general our league form has been good. We have to put this behind us and focus on gaining points to climb the table."