Lancaster City must inflict pain says Graham Lancashire

And assistant boss Graham Lancashire says the Dolly Blues must start hurting and punishing their opponents.

One goal was enough to beat Lancaster at struggling Basford United last week and again on Saturday at Gainsborough Trinity, leaving the visitors 15th in the NPL Premier Division.

Lancaster have won only one of their last nine games in all competitions, failing to score in the last three.

Lancaster told the club's media team: “I think Saturday was definitely a better performance than Tuesday.

“The changes were needed to try and freshen it up a bit. I thought first half especially we played some really good football without actually hurting them.

“Chances have dropped but we haven't put the ball in the back of the net and that's ultimately killed the game off for us.”

One positive was Matty Clarke's man-of-the-match performance on his return to the side.

Lancaster said: “Clarkey was very good and we know what he is about. We see it week in, week out in training.

“He just hasn't produced that when he's been given opportunities previously this season, so it was a bit of a gamble.

“Unfortunately for Sam (Bailey), he's lost his place but Clarkey has come in and done really well, so it's going to be a tough decision next week over what shape and what personnel we play.”

The Dolly Blues' next two games are at home, against an FC United of Manchester side one point and one place below them on Saturday, then against fourth-placed Ashton United next Tuesday.

Lancaster added: “We don't want to go on a slippery slide down that table. And frustrating as Tuesday was at Basford, we still created a hatful of chances but didn't break them down.

“You could probably say the same at Gainsborough. I thought we played some really good football without punishing them. They were a danger on the break and a few individual errors killed us.

“We'll analyse the game and we'll have conversations with the players. We've just had a good conversation in the dressing room about a lot of things, which we'll keep in-house and then we go again.”