Ian Allinson says Boreham Wood have fallen short of his expectations at this stage but has seen enough to suggest they can stay in the National League.
A 3-2 defeat by Bromley on Tuesday – the side who pipped them to the Conference South title last year – saw Wood extend their winless run to five games since a surprise win at Tranmere Rovers last month.
However, they remain a point clear of the relegation zone ahead of Saturday's home clash against Wrexham and Allinson remains upbeat.
Speaking after Tuesday's reverse against the south Londoners, he said: "I’ve certainly seen enough to suggest we can stay up.
"Some of the performances this year have been very good and tonight I felt there was a high energy and tempo about us.
"Unfortunately at the moment teams are sitting back and counter-attacking against us so we might have to be a bit more patient. We can do that if we get in front, if we’re always going behind and having to chase the game it becomes very difficult."
He continued: "At the moment we’ve not been good enough and we’ve fallen short of where we want to be.
"I have to take full responsibility for that but also we need to look at the players as well in terms of the set pieces we’ve conceded because we’ve not defended well enough."
Set piece goals were again Wood's undoing with Charlie MacDonald and Junior Morias strikes cancelled out by efforts from Ben May, Moses Ademola and Bradley Goldberg.
It was a similar story on Saturday as Wood surrendered the lead to lose 3-1 at Lincoln City; two goals coming from deliveries into the penalty area.
"If we don’t defend properly then we aren’t going to win any sort of games," continued Allinson. "It was a little bit disappointing in the fact that I felt we gave soft goals away.
"We defended poorly on two set pieces and conceded two goals. It’s something which has been the tale of the whole season really."
To that end, Allinson hopes to add to his defensive ranks after snapping up former Tranmere Rovers forward Mustafa Tiryaki on Tuesday.
He said: "I think we need to go and get some more leaders and height in there and we need to get some more defenders who are going to defend properly."
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