STEVE Castle was frustrated as his side were held to a 0-0 draw with third from bottom Thurrock. The pitch made life tough for both sides but City had enough chances to take all three points, with Paul Hakim firing wide from six yards and hitting the post

STEVE Castle was frustrated as his side were held to a 0-0 draw with third from bottom Thurrock.

The pitch made life tough for both sides but City had enough chances to take all three points, with Paul Hakim firing wide from six yards and hitting the post, and Simon Martin heading straight at the goalkeeper.

City have struggled to find the back of the net all season and Castle believes had his side got the first goal, the home side would have collapsed.

Speaking after the game he said: "Obviously if you get that first goal, games change. Lets be honest it's been a season long problem for us really, we haven't scored enough goals. Paul Hakim's hit the post and Simon Martin's had a great chance first half. If we go and get our noses in front then I think to be perfectly honest with you that's done and dusted for them because I think they were just waiting to get beat. But the longer it went on they saw something there, they're fighting for their lives. Fair play to them. From our perspective, we know what can be achieved by our players and that was a below par performance. If we want to have any success and we want to push on for next season, with all due respect to Thurrock and the situation they're in we've got to come here and you've got to get three points."

Speaking of the pitch Castle said: "I don't know for what reason they've decided to water the pitch. It's a home game and they are entitled to do what they want but it wasn't the best. It was varied; it was quite hard on the sides and soft in the middle. We had to deal with it, they're probably more used to it, but we won't put that as an excuse for our own standards which we've set of recent times; that was a below par performance."

Lee Butcher was called into action on several occasions but Castle stated that the he would have been disappointed had any of the efforts gone in.

"I wouldn't say he was overly tested, they were all on target so he had to deal with them. The highlight I would say was the final one where there was a little bit more pace on it. I think Lee would have been disappointed and so would I if any of those got spilled and it showed what a quality player he is."

Adam Everitt returned to the starting line up at Ship Lane, and with James Fisher expected to be fit for tomorrow's clash with Eastleigh, Castle is facing another selection dilemma.

"He hasn't done himself any harm whatsoever. He competes admirably in that midfield and in fairness you get a 100 percent performance from Adam wherever you put him. Fair play to him, he's obviously given me a bit of a selection headache because I would have thought that James Fisher would declare himself fit for Tuesday.