STEVE Castle hopes to have a couple of new faces in his squad before Tuesday night s must win game against Basingstoke Town. The City supremo is hoping to add to his squad after Saturday s defeat at Hayes & Yeading left City without a win in 14 weeks b

STEVE Castle hopes to have a couple of new faces in his squad before Tuesday night's 'must win' game against Basingstoke Town.

The City supremo is hoping to add to his squad after Saturday's defeat at Hayes & Yeading left City without a win in 14 weeks but admits his search so far has proved fruitless.

"We've tried tirelessly to be honest; the amount of phone calls we've made is frightening and we're not really getting much joy out of it. It would be great bolstering it with two or three. Soloman's [Shields] come in and shown what he's about especially first half and of course he scored, so we're hoping on a few favours from people and hopefully before Tuesday we might have a few new faces."

Castle has been frustrated in his attempts to sign players and admits it's a tough stage of the season to get new bodies in.

"Putting it quite bluntly, we can't get the lads that we would want to get in to bolster ourselves up. If they're in a successful campaign themselves they don't really want to come to us or a club of this stature at this time of year and then all you've got really with due respect is work experience lads. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't."

City continued their current trend of only playing for 45 minutes on Saturday and the Saints boss has reiterated his message that his team must play for the full 90 minutes.

"We can't seem to sustain a game of football for 90 minutes. If it was 45 minutes we would compete with anyone in the league. It's not good enough. We keep giving goals away, and alright they're very good going forward, give them full credit for that, I think they're one of the best teams in this league.

"For 45 minutes in the first half we more than competed and we were a little bit unlucky to be 1-0 down and obviously got ourselves back in it and should have had our tails up and then you've gone and given another set play goal away. It's not good, the slide, we're sort of thinking we've got to put a stop to it sooner or later."

The City boss was extremely unhappy that Hayes & Yeading's equaliser came from a set play.

"We've given ourselves a mountain to climb in regards to giving a set play away and with the amount of lads we've got that are good in the air it's so disappointing.

"We've had a spell this season when we were very hard to beat. We had a spell earlier in the season when set pieces were an issue but I thought we had sorted that out. All managers hate conceding goals but especially set plays."

Castle paid tribute to the performance of Ben Martin who returned from suspension to marshal the City back line expertly.

"Ben's come back in, I think he's had a fantastic season personally, he's a true captain. There was a couple of poor performances there that I'm not going to single out publically but Ben certainly wasn't one of them. I think there were plus points with people like Hassan Sulaiman who at the moment is having to be very adaptable."

Tuesday night's game with Basingstoke looks set to be pivotal to City's season though it won't be an easy game for City with the visitors on a decent run of form.

"This Tuesday is becoming a must win. We've got to get on the winning road. We haven't got a fantastic squad number but we've got to deal with it and hopefully Adam Everitt will be ok on Tuesday and then you've got maybe that Ryan Frater could be ok.

"It'll be a very tough game. We've just got to have faith that we've got enough about ourselves to show that we're a better team than a struggling team but at this moment in time we've not had a win in 14 weeks and I wouldn't say confidence is low but we've just got to perform for 90 minutes. Hopefully we can get ourselves in front and show what good players they can be.