Lavery keeping his cool despite another damaging setback for Kettering Town
Kettering Town boss Richard Lavery admitted he isn’t happy at his side's inability to perform on artificial surfaces, but remains buoyant despite a 3-2 defeat on the road at Redditch United on Saturday.
The Poppies spurned a number of excellent chances in the first half before going behind to a Johnny Johnston strike on the stroke of half time.
They emphatically came back in a crazy four minutes after the restart to take the lead through Devon Kelly-Evans and Isiah Noel-Williams.
But two errors saw the Poppies come unstuck as Jonhston gleefully added a second after a Dan Jezeph drop and Kyle Rowley sealed the points with 10 minutes to go.
Defeat, coupled with a victory for Kevin Wilkins' AFC Telford United, means Kettering have been knocked off the top spot and are now two points behind the Bucks, but they do have two games in hand over the Shropshire side.
"I thought first half we controlled the game, possession wise, chances wise,” said Lavery.
“Sometimes you're a victim of your own possession, we've had all of the possession and they've gone down, probably had one shot, scored and made it 1-0.
"We had enough there to win the game, and that showed - we scored two goals in what four minutes to make it 2-1?
"Obviously there's been two massive errors, I have to say it from the goalie, and mistakes change games don't they?
"We've made more mistakes than them, but saying that we've had enough chances.
"You can't go away from home and score two or three and expect to lose the game. We have this time and we've done that a couple of times this season, so something's gotta happen to change that.
"We had a full bill of health on Saturday, a full squad to pick from.
"Am I panicking? No, because I know we've got enough in there to turn the corner. It's a little blip that's gone on further than I expected it to.
"But let's be honest we should have won that game on Saturday, and errors have cost us three points."
Another concern will be the form of strikers Jonny Edwards and Nile Ranger, neither of whom have scored since Boxing Day's victory over bottom side Biggleswade Town.
Manager Lavery continues to believe that his star strikers can't make a partnership work.
"We've always played 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1, so I'm not bringing players in to play together, it's one or the other for me,” said the Poppies boss.
"Jonny did okay, and I thought Nile was good when he come on for the half an hour he got. They won't play together - I don't play two at top.
"If I ever play two at top it will be one of them and another. I don't change my formation for signing people."
Kettering's home game to Bromsgrove Sporting on Saturday is being billed as a must-win by some of the Kettering fanbase, and asked if he was feeling the pressure from the chasing pack Lavery replied: "I'm fine, I'm sound.
"Sometimes you're a victim of your own success. I'm not feeling pressure - I've done a good job here and I'll continue to do a good job here."
The Poppies are back in action on Tuesday night when they entertain Northampton Town Under-23s in the quarter-final of the NFA Hillier Senior Cup (ko 7.45pm).