St Albans City boss Ian Allinson will not be giving up chasing a play-off place despite his side’s dip in form.

Saints’ 4-1 home loss to Bath City on Saturday means the club have now won just once in 10 National League South matches.

However, despite that City remain eighth in the table just four points off Hungerford Town who occupy the final play-off place.

Allinson said: “We are going through that phase at the moment where the players are lacking confidence.

“Winning breeds confidence, but losing becomes a habit as winning becomes a habit and we have got to snap out of this as quickly as we can.

“It’s a problem that’s crept up on us. We have got to get out of that [habit] and we have got to do that as quickly as we can, we do that by being on the front foot and by working extremely hard.

“While I still have mathmatically an opportunity to get in these play-offs I won’t be giving up and hopefully the players won’t be giving up, but we need to improve.”

It was an afternoon to forget for the hosts against Bath as they found themselves 2-0 down after 21 minutes after efforts from Marvin Morgan and Nick McCootie.

It was 3-0 on 60 minutes as Shaun McCoulsky capitalised on a defensive mistake.

There was slight cheer for the home support as Charlie Walker pulled one back soon after.

Saints saw a chance to make it 3-2 go begging as Shaun Lucien’s penalty was saved by Bath keeper Max O’Leary after Sam Merson had been fouled.

In the final stages the visitors’ Andy Watkins tucked in for 4-1 after McCoulsky had hit a post.

St Albans return to action on Saturday as they visit 17th placed Truro City.

Before that trip though Allinson and his staff have work to do on the training field.

He added: “We have had some really good spells [in recent games], but some awful spells inbetween where teams have scored against us.

“We have to go and work on that, we have to go and work defensively on what we are doing wrong.”