St Albans City’s joint manager lamented his side’s lack of a finishing touch in today’s goalless draw with Gosport Borough on the opening day of the season.

The Saints should have won at Privett Road but they left their shooting boots back at Clarence Park.

Simon Thomas set the tone, slicing a shot wide from seven yards out. The rest of the side followed suit, with Lewis Hilliard, Billy Medlock and Luke Allen all failing to find the net when well placed.

Louie Theophanous did open the scoring, but it was ruled out for offside.

“We did create enough chances to win the game and but for better finishing, we could have come away with three points,” said James Gray.

On the disallowed goal, he added: “No one knows the rule. It seems that if you’re in the line of sight of the goalkeeper and in the same postcode, then you’re offside. Whether it was right or wrong, it was just one of the questionable decisions.”

Gray directed some fierce words towards Sam Allison and his officiating team, but, in the end, was quite happy with a point.

It’s the first time in two season’s that St Albans haven’t lost on the opening day of the campaign – they lost to Poole Town in 2013/14 and Hayes and Yeading in 201/15.

“If we want to achieve something this season, we need to come away from places like this with something. Yes, we won here last season but we went to other places and came away with nothing,” he explained.

“Can’t gauge yet, it’s too early to know if it’s a good point. We’ll see how the season pans out. We thought we’d won a good three points at Staines [Town] last year and they finished bottom.

“I’m pleased with the squad and on today’s performance, if we can recover from it, we’ll be in with a chance of getting three points on Monday.”