ONCE again the fine margins of football are coming home to roost. That narrow line between a good performance and an okay one is just one defensive slip up or one missed half chance away. After four games we were looking pretty well set. Yes, we’d conceded a few too many goals at home to Gainsborough and Alfreton but we kept commendable clean sheets at pre-season favourites Salford and York achieving good results and banged in the goals at home.

Three games on and things look a little different even if the level of performances hasn’t shifted too much. Defeat at home to Telford followed by two draws last weekend saw a pattern emerge that highlights how close we were to either winning or losing. As it was, a couple of draws in the grand scheme of things might end up being good results.

Before the start of the season, the one area I wanted to see improvement was defending, not just by the defence but by the team as a whole. I wanted us to get back to conceding a goal per game or less. We’ve achieved that now, albeit you can dissect each goal we’ve conceded and find our own fingerprints all over them. We’re yet to conceded a goal where you can stand back and say “there’s nothing we could have done about that”. The goals conceded at the weekend were prime examples. A shoddy back pass that the goalkeeper couldn’t deal with at North Ferriby and slack marking against Spennymoor. They’re the sort of stuff that can be worked on and should be. Cut out these errors and we’re half way there to being a very good side. If we can’t cut them out, then questions eventually have to be asked of the players who continue to make them.

Meanwhile at the other end of the pitch, we seem to be almost there too. There are definitely goals in this side. We seem to create a lot of half chances; they just need to be taken. Again, it’s the fine margins. If we fail to find the net more than once a game, we leave ourselves open to dropping points when coupled with defensive mistakes as we found to our cost during the middle part of last season. I suspect like most, missing chances can be more infuriating than defensive errors. Based on the comments you hear at the games and what is put on social media, the criticism always seems to follow the strikers for missed chances while defensive errors are overlooked. It would seem you have to be pretty thick-skinned to be a Darlo striker these days.

Some criticism is justified although I thought the cheers for James Caton’s substitution at North Ferriby was a little off. Everyone has a view of which one of their favourite strikers could do a better job. For me, it’s a difficult situation as the style of play we opt for – going direct to Mark Beck – doesn’t seem to favour any of the other strikers we hold the playing registration for. Ideally, we could do with someone who will run beyond and anticipate the flicks from Beck but we simply don’t have that player with the requisite quality for this league. Hopefully, as the games start to thin out, a bit of work on the training ground will iron out what issues exist at both ends of the pitch.

Let’s hope we stay switched on at Southport on Saturday and Chorley on Tuesday. Two tough looking away games that will certainly test the resolve of the defence and make every half chance we have look like a big opportunity. Hopefully, the ball might bounce on the good performance side of the line.