Five days after putting in a titanic defensive display with nine men against Bideford at Clarence Park, St Albans City lost 1-0 to the same side at Kingsley Road.

Danny Sullivan’s 18th minute goal on the break settled the tie as Saints lost on the road for the first time since the defeat to Hungerford Town on December 28.

Despite the loss, City remain third in the table with a chance to redeem themselves tonight (Monday) against Chippenham Town at Clarence Park, 7.45pm kick-off.

“We’ve had setbacks this season; our last loss was away at Hungerford and then we went on a 10-game unbeaten run,” he told Saintsnet.

“I told the lads after the game, ‘there’s nothing you can do about it now, we need win on Monday and go on another run’. We’re still in third, still in there; the league is reflective of where teams should be.

“It’s a disappointing result and we need to be better Monday night.”

City’s season-long issue of not shooting when the opportunity presents itself haunted them on Saturday, although Gray admitted it wasn’t Saints’ day.

“There wasn’t a lot in the game. We started well, on the front foot, moved the ball and caused problems but when we had the opportunity to shoot and we passed it up.

“We try to eradicate it – against Burnham we scored three from distance and got three points. But the ball was never going to sit nicely on this pitch so lads didn’t have pop-shots but I wish they had.

“We would have put them on the back foot then they went against the run of play and scored. It gave us an uphill task because as soon as they had the goal they were difficult to break down.”

He added: “We could have played for another hour and not scored. It just wasn’t our day.”