Do Lancaster City have a fear of failure?

​There is no doubt that the Dolly Blues squad boasts a huge amount of talent – and on their day are as good as anyone in the NPL Premier Division.

However, too often this season – they have lost their edge when the pressure has been at its greatest.

While the first half of this season was ruined by a catalogue of injuries to key players, over the last few months results have certainly picked up.

Indeed, the team at one point put themselves in a position for a late charge for a play-off place.

Unfortunately, they lost momentum or produced a poor performance just when the play-off places were within sight.

As it is, City 2-1 victory on Saturday over Guiseley means they have finished the season in 11th place in the NPL Premier Division – eight points behind fifth-placed Matlock Town.

Fell believes it has been a recurring theme at the club in the time he has been manager.

"It is interesting,” said Fell. “I have spoken with my staff about pressure and how we feel our players respond to pressure.

"If you think two or three seasons ago, we were fighting with South Shields for the title before Covid struck.

"Every time we had an opportunity to hit the top of the league, we failed.

"A few weeks ago, we were within six points of the play-offs and we went to Warrington Rylands knowing that we had to win but we failed.

"So we were thinking do we need to analyse this? I there some kind of psychological profiling which needs to be done.

"Do we need to do something to make sure that in those situations that we are coming out on top more than what we are doing at the moment.

“We had some interesting discussions about the marginal gains and all the things we can do to close that gap on the play-offs next season.”

Fell will spend the next two weeks making decisions regarding the existing members of his squad.

He has hinted that players such as Charlie Bailey, Niall Cowperthwaite and Jake Connelly will have one-year extension clauses to their contracts activated.