NO wins in five games and only three points from a possible 15 are statistics that make for grim reading.

Just four weeks since winning at Salford City and starting the campaign with three back-to-back victories, plus a fine performance in the draw at York, Darlington have hit a sticky patch.

They aren’t scoring, they’re still committing defensive mistakes and injuries are piling up, all of which combined to contribute to the second defeat of the season on Saturday.

They lost 2-0 at injury-hit Southport after a performance remarkably similar to the one last weekend at North Ferriby, when Darlington created a glut of chances but could only draw 1-1.

At Southport Quakers again wasted chances, particularly in a strong first half showing, a first 45 much better than the opening half against Spennymoor Town last Monday, and goalkeeper Mark Halstead being voted man of the match by his team’s supporters said a lot.

There’s only seven games played, the clocks have not even gone back yet, so it’s not the time for post-mortems, though the online inquests were raging by Saturday evening.

There is solace to be found in looking to the past. In each of the last four seasons Darlington have endured a poor run, and on each occasion Martin Gray turned it around. This is nothing new.

However, having scored ten goals in the first three games and two in the five fixtures since then, it is alarming how quickly Quakers have gone from prolific to profligate.

The manager is as frustrated as anyone and his patience is wearing thin, warning after Saturday that he could bring in new signings, while he did not rule out giving Nathan Cartman a chance following the expiration of his loan at Farsley Celtic after their game tomorrow.

“As manager you can’t do anything about the missed chances apart from bring in new players,” said Gray, whose team are at Chorley tomorrow evening. “If you continue not to score goals, you’ve got to say ‘you’ve been given chance after chance after chance, it’s not working’.

“That’s something we’re always looking at in every department, we’re always looking to improve the squad.

“We’ve got to make sure we’re in the market and that we keep looking. We know what we want to bring in, we know what we want to do.”

On Cartman, who will be cup-tied for Quakers as he played for Farsley in the FA Cup on Saturday, Gray said: “He finishes on Tuesday so we’ll be bringing him back in and we’ll reassess it then.”

Shots by Josh Gillies, Stephen Thompson and Dave Syers had Southport worried, Darlington’s patient play, and not always long-ball, creating opportunities.

Halstead’s best save came after a Phil Turnbull ball up the left resulted in a David Ferguson finding Mark Beck, stooping low to head at goal, the debutant tipping over acrobatically.

He then denied Gillies twice in a matter of seconds as the half drew to a close, when it began to look like it could be one of those days for Darlington.

“You’ve got to score, that’s what it’s about,” added Gray.

“The theme of the last three games has been that we’ve gone from being prolific to not scoring.

“You can’t afford to do that because at any level teams will always get a chance and it seems like every time we make an error we get punished.”

The error in question was Kevin Burgess’.

It was his first game since April 1, and while Gray says he’s not quite fit enough yet, the captain was having a steady game until the 49th minute when he misjudged a long ball, allowing Southport to capitalise, Yves Zama nipping in to set up Chris Sang to score.

Suddenly Darlington were in disarray. They never recovered, and it was the hosts who held the upper hand for the remainder of the contest, wasting chances of their own for a second goal.

Quakers’ cause was not assisted when Terry Galbraith became their latest casualty, limping off with an injury.

Gray, to his credit, has stayed clear of using injuries as an excuse.

Chris Hunter faces around two months out after sustaining an injury at North Ferriby, while Liam Marrs (ankle) and Gary Brown (concussion) were ruled out on Saturday.

“That’s football, you have one or two issues, there’s no room for excuses,” said Brown.

“Kevin Burgess had to play, he’s not ready to be starting games yet, but things get thrown at you. Chris Hunter has a two-month lay-off with a fracture, so it’s very frustrating, but we’ve got to focus on the next game and that’s what we’re doing now.”

Late on Gillies saw an inswinging corner punched clear by Halstead, who then saved Caton’s volley.

But it was Southport who added to the scoreline in the six minutes of added time, teenage debutant Chris Merrie scoring from 25 yards.