From the 26 defeats, it’s the 13th time the Nailers have lost a game by a single goal, confirming that their competitiveness in games is overshadowed by a lack of cutting edge.

Manager Jimmy Albans looked on in frustration after his 12th defeat from 18 league games in charge, which has seen eight of those defeats come by a single goal.

“What’s frustrating is that we’ve competed again, but only for 45 minutes.

“We’ve started the game very lacklustre, and even the warm-up was lacklustre.

“I warned the lads before we went out that if your warm-up is lacklustre then you take that into your first half performance.

“Then all of a sudden we get the lads back in at half time two goals down and we have a good talk with them and we got a reaction going in to the second half, where I thought we were the better team.”

The Nailers came within inches of stealing a last minute equaliser as Paul Lister (pictured) headed the ball over the bar from two yards out, after Jon Froggatt had seemingly done enough to put the ball in the back of the net without the help of the defender.

“Paul thinks he’s got to go for it, and Jon thinks he has probably already scored, and they’re decisions that either go your way or don’t.

“At the end of the day, I’m more critical of the fact that we conceded two goals from open play, as they had limited chances in front of goal and they’ve taken the majority of them.

“We’ve competed against every team we’ve played, and we keep losing by a single goal.

“Workington are near the top of the league, I believe they’ve went second after the game, and we’ve very nearly snatched something from them.

“The frustrating thing now is we should be winning football matches.

“People will think I’m mad to say that, but even against the top teams like Workington and Ilkeston last Monday, I have the belief that we should be winning those games.

“I think we missed Rob Stevenson badly against Workington, as he is one player who can beat people, make things happen and put defenders on the back foot all the time.

“Hopefully Rob and Phil Watt will be available for Tuesday against Frickley because that’s now a very important game for us.”