Lancaster City boss Mark Fell demands improvement

The Dolly Blues manager was disgusted with his side’s second-half showing and warned his players that work still needs to be done this season.

A four-match unbeaten run – which had included three successive victories – had given Fell belief that his players could mount a late charge for the play-offs in the NPL Premier Division.

However, he may have to go back to the drawing board on that particular target as they slipped 13 points behind the top five.

Perhaps more importantly though, City are in 12th spot in the table – a healthy 10 points clear of the bottom four.

Fell revealed last week that he would have happily taken his team’s current position two months ago when they hovered in and around the drop zone.

However, he will not accept such a poor display as his team produced at the weekend.

"I am disgusted with our second half performance,” said Fell, who will be looking for a huge improvement when his side travel to another relegation threatened side in the shape of Belper Town this weekend.

"I have not been as angry about the way we have played in a long, long time. We need to be apologetic to the people who have came. We need to respond and they will come in Tuesday and Thursday and work.

"It’s bad day for us and we have done that a few times where we have put ourselves in a better position in the league; we can’t think that we’ve won three or four now so we are there because we are not.

"You do all that hard work over a few weeks to drag yourself back up there – maybe I am guilty of being the eternal optimist.

"If we beat Nantwich, beat Belper and then you think last six or seven games there’s a chance of dragging yourself in the play-offs but not like that.”