Darlington boss Mark Cooper has warned his players they must cut out defensive mistakes ahead of their trip to Blue Square Bet Premier leaders AFC Wimbledon tomorrow.

Cooper he was unhappy with recent defensive performances, including the two goals conceded against Mossley in last weekend’s FA Cup game.

With tomorrow’s opponents unbeaten at home, it will take a sterling defensive display for the Quakers to get anything from the game and Cooper admits there will be no room for errors.

“Last week, we scored six goals, the only area that worries me is that defensively we conceded two terrible goals, and against ten men again,”

Cooper said.

“We struggle when teams are down to ten men, and we conceded two terrible goals both straight through the middle of our defence.

“So that tells you where the problems were and it’s something we’ve got to eradicate.

It’s something we’re trying to improve on.”

Quakers’ boss is still in the market for a new defender to tighten up his back-line and revealed he is trying to get someone in for tomorrow.

“We’re always trying to improve the squad. January’s not far away, we’re looking at targets we can maybe bring in now and make permanent in January,’’ he said.

“We want to improve the squad all the time. There’s no resting on our laurels because probably over the first quarter of the season it’s shown that we’re not quite good enough, and that includes all of us.

“We have to make it better, in all areas. We’re trying to bring in another player before Saturday who is somebody who’ll join us and become permanent in January.”

Even though Quakers have drawn seven of their eight away games this season, Cooper doesn’t believe playing away from home has been easier and but admits a good atmosphere on Saturday will spur his players on.

“Is it easier away? If you’d have seen us in the first half at Mansfield you’d have said ‘No’. The second half is probably the best we’ve played.

“I’m just trying to find some consistency, and 11 players who want to stay in the team.

“There are a lot of players who keep playing themselves out of the team rather than in it. So I’m looking forward to the game, I think we’ll play better with a real, good atmosphere there.”

Cooper may be looking to make a signing before tomorrow’s game, but it will not be Keith Gillespie whose arrival has hit a snag.

The winger, whose most recent club was in Northern Ireland, has been on trial and Cooper hoped to hand him a deal, but the manager said: “There’s some FA rules which stipulates clubs need international clearance for a player who’s been playing in Ireland and we can’t get that until at least the end of November.

“We didn’t know about this until the other day and it is a disappointment.”

Quakers are allowing Gillespie to decide if he wishes to continue training with the club before signing at the end of November.

■ Darlington’s Under-18s team go to Accrington in the first round of the FA Youth Cup next Tuesday after beating Mossley 3-0 in the third preliminary round at The Northern Echo Arena with goals by Jordan Marshall, Dale Hopson and Phil Gray.