St Albans City manager Ian Allinson believes the home defeat to Gloucester City has piled the pressure on his team – with games running out in their pursuit of a National League South play-off place.

Saints were cruising at half-time and despite only taking one of a plentiful supply of chances, a header from Michael Clark, there looked to be only one winner.

But the second period failed to live up to the previous 45 minutes and Gloucester took their own openings to win 2-1.

Results elsewhere mean it’s as you were in the table but this was most certainly a missed opportunity and another example of City not excelling against a side battling for their lives against relegation.

Allinson said: “When we play teams in their situation we have to take maximum points, or at the very least make sure we don’t lose.

“It is a recurring scenario but then we put in good performances against some of the top sides.

“We’ve picked up good results recently but we’ve undone some of that good work.

“We haven’t applied ourselves in the second half that’s the worst we’ve defended in some time.

“You have to do the right things every single week. You can’t start a game well then sit at half-time and think you’ve only got to turn up to win quite comfortably.

“They outfought us and worked harder and that’s disappointing as we have worked hard for most of the games this year.

“We’re no worse off than we were at the start but we’re running out of games.

“We’ve got six games left and we’re going to have to show a lot more character and work a lot harder otherwise we’ll struggle to pick up points.”

Their first chance to close the four point gap to seventh place comes away at league new boys Slough on Saturday, with the hosts fresh from an impressive 1-0 win at title-chasing Woking.

Allinson said: “They’ve adapted to the league really well and are just three points off us.

“And they’ll feel with six wins they could put themselves in with a chance.

“When the likes of Dartford and Billericay fail to win we have to take advantage and we haven’t [with the loss to Gloucester].

“And after the wins against Weston-super-Mare and Dulwich Hamlet that’s so disappointing.”