Dejected Darlington defender Ryan Valentine has called on his teammates to act now before it's too late after Saturday's defeat at Bournemouth edged them a point nearer the relegation zone.

Quakers are now just seven points from safety with 11 games to go.

And summer signing Valentine, who has made the left-back spot his own since arriving on a free transfer, feels it's important to assure their league status sooner rather than later.

"We're not safe yet so we need to start picking up points ourselves to make sure we're not scrapping for wins at the end of the season," said Valentine.

The Welsh Under-21 international feels tomorrow night's game at home to Cambridge will prove just as difficult, as the Us still have their own promotion aspirations.

"Our next game is going to be no easier because Cambridge still have hopes of going up," said Valentine. "They'll be coming up here looking to take three points. What we must do though is concentrate on our own game and hopefully put one or two things right."

At the weekend Quakers got few things right against the third-placed Cherries.

"They're a good side and they deserve to be up there but we made it easy for them and let ourselves down badly," said Valentine."Right from the start all 11 of us just didn't compete.

"I thought we were second best for the whole 90 minutes.

"In the first half it was one of the worst 45 minutes I've ever been a part of. We gave it a better go in the second but were still nowhere near as good as we know we can be. All aspects of our game let us down.

"There was no committment there and our passing was very poor."

Valentine refused to lay blame on a gruelling week which saw Quakers grind out a draw against derby rivals Hartlepool and beat York 2-1.

"The last couple of games have taken a lot out us but saying that it's the same for everyone else," he said. "Everybody has the same amount of games to play so it does even itself out a lot during the course of the season."

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