HAVING already conceded more goals than they did in each of their previous four seasons, it is clear where Darlington’s problems lie, yet doing something about it has proven less simple.

Beleaguered manager Martin Gray has frequently talked of spending time working on the team’s defending, devoting training to shoring up the rear-guard.

Three weeks ago he analysed every goal scored against Darlington, arranging for a DVD to be made to show the players where they were going wrong.

Goalkeeper Peter Jameson was then dropped after making an error during a 3-3 draw at Stockport County a fortnight ago, but debutant Ed Wilczynski also conceded three last Saturday though he could not be faulted.

Curzon Ashton’s 3-1 win at Blackwell Meadows took the tally Quakers have conceded to 43 in 27 league matches – one more than teams scored against Gray’s men all last season.

Darlington’s defending was perhaps their nadir of the season, all three goals coming as a result of an attack-minded Quakers being caught on the break, and Gray admits such tactics can prove costly.

His sixth-placed team head to fourth-top Chorley today, and Gray said: “All the players want to learn, they want to improve and they’re all up for the fight and we’ve got a great chance of the play-offs, so things aren’t too bad,” he said. “But we need to tighten things up.

“We’ve got to focus on what we’re doing, on trying to improve. It’s got to be better and we will get better. That’s our job as management and players. We take the good and we take the bad.

“I like to be attack-minded, but we’ve been a bit too attack-minded in some ways and we’ve got to learn.

“It’s a bit of everything, we’ve not been as smart as we need to be as well.

“It’s a learning curve for everybody and people have got to be patient.”

The bulk of Gray’s title-winning team from last season remain important members of the squad, with three of the usual back-four – Gary Brown, Kevin Burgess and Terry Galbraith – all remaining first-choice players.

But Gray admits the jump in quality has been the biggest of the three promotions he has steered the club to since 2012-13.

“We’ve lost more games already than we did in each of the previous four seasons, so that tells you everything,” added the manager, who would like to have brought in a defender this week, but tight finances dictated otherwise.

“I try to be positive; we’re still scoring goals.

“Last year when we gave the ball away we didn’t get punished as much, but this year we’re up against better players and teams that set up better.”

Chorley are one of only two teams – Gloucester City being the other – which have failed to score against Darlington over 90 minutes, the Lancashire club losing 2-0 at Heritage Park in August, and they are one of the less prolific teams in the National League North.

They have scored 38 times – the second fewest in the top half – but have conceded only 20.

Their form, like Darlington’s, is patchy but they did the double over leaders AFC Fylde at Christmas.