ALUN ARMSTRONG admits he is having to rebuild the confidence of his Darlington players as he looks to get his side’s promotion push back on track in the final month of the season.

Last night’s stalemate at Banbury was Quakers’ second goalless draw in the space of four days, with Armstrong’s side having won just one of their last ten matches.

They remain in the thick of the play-off hunt, sitting in fifth position in the National League North table with seven more games to play, but Armstrong admits he is striving to recover some of the attacking freedom and fluidity that characterised much of Darlington’s play in the first half of the campaign.

“It’s a point more than we had at the start, and considering we went down to ten men at the end (when Jake Cooper was sent off), you’ll take any point at the minute,” said Armstrong. “We wanted the three, but I think anyone who has seen the last three games, you can see the lads are low on confidence.a

“They got a little bit of stick after the Farsley game, and then you look at the last two games on difficult pitches and they’ve probably been very nervous. I think you can see they’re nervous – they’re getting rid of the ball before they normally do – and they’re sticking to their shape, which is probably taking away from how we want to play with more fluid football.

“It’s a balancing act at the minute – trying to get that confidence out of them while you can see they’re worried about making mistakes. That’s the biggest thing I can see on the pitch.”

Having criticised his side’s sloppy defensive play as they lost at Farsley a little over a week ago, Armstrong has at least been pleased with the organisation and discipline that has enabled Quakers to keep successive clean sheets.

Neither side really looked like scoring at Banbury last night, with the poor playing surface contributing to a largely scrappy encounter.

“The lads have taken a lot of stick because of the sloppy goals that we’ve conceded this season,” said Armstrong, ahead of this weekend’s home game with promotion rivals Chester. “People have had a go at them about not keeping enough clean sheets, well the lads have shown that they can do it.

“Now, it’s just about finding that right balance to try to get the three points and actually win the game to kick on.”