‘PLEASE stay behind us’, was Martin Gray’s plea to frustrated fans after today’s 0-0 draw with Leamington.

The result stretched Darlington’s winless run to seven games during which they have scored only three times.

Injuries, however, are a factor at the moment, says Gray, who saw two more of his players substituted today due to injury.

Centre-back Dom Collins went off with a groin strain and emergency right-back Tom Portas was substituted with a hamstring problem.

Quakers were unable to call on Liam Marrs, who failed a fitness test on an ankle problem, Kevin Burgess, Chris Hunter and Gary Brown.

“Everyone has got to stick behind the team at the moment,” said Gray, after a match that saw some booing from fans at full-time.

“The truth is that we’ve got six defenders out. At any level at any club if you’ve got that amount of players not playing for you if puts more pressure on the rest of the team to score, to win games.

“It’s all come at us at once, but I’m very positive.

“The message is –try to be patient please and stick with the team as they have done in the past.”

Darlington are at home to FC United on Wednesday, a match likely to see a smaller attendance than today’s 1,277, which was the lowest Quakers have attracted at Blackwell Meadows.

Leamington showed little ambition, seemingly content to play for a point, though they nearly snatched all three as they spurned a couple of chances late on.

Darlington were largely on top, however, but were unable to turn their possession into points against a team that not kept a clean sheet until today, and had lost seven of their previous eight games.

Gray added: “It’s an important point, that’s one thing that I would take out of the game. We would’ve been very disappointed to come away with nothing.

“We had lots of possession throughout the game, which I expected us to have, and in the first half I thought we were very good.

“We needed to score when we were on top.”