Law '˜disheartened and frustrated' as Poppies fall to Histon

Marcus Law was a frustrated man after Kettering Town's 3-1 defeat at Histon

The Poppies’ slim hopes of claiming a play-off place in the Evo-Stik Southern League Premier Division suffered a devastating blow as the struggling hosts scored twice in the final 11 minutes to seal their victory after Spencer Weir-Daley had brought them level early in the second half.

The loss came just a few days after Law’s team had dismantled Dorchester Town 3-0 at Latimer Park with one of their best performances of the season.

But the inconsistency that has plagued their campaign struck again as they failed to follow it up against relegation-threatened Histon with the defeat leaving them nine points off the play-off places, albeit with four games in hand.

And Law was left bitterly disappointed as his team missed what he described as “a massive opportunity”.

“I am sick of having the same conversations,” the Poppies boss said.

“We went into the game on the back of what was our best team performance of the season and then we have produced our worst defensive displays.

“It’s difficult to know why this is happening. If we look at the form for the past eight games then we are fourth in the list.

“I think we missed two big players in Liam Bateman and James Brighton.

“They have been excellent for us and if you take two alds like that out of your team then it’s going to hurt you.

“But we keep throwing away massive opportunities against teams we should be doing better against. It’s something we need to sort out.

“It’s disheartening and very frustrating to have the same group of players putting in a totally different performance from the previous one.”

Law admitted his team were again undone by counter-attacking football, something that he concedes they must look to rectify.

“We are finding it difficult against teams who like to play counter-attacking football,” he added.

“Frome scored on the counter, Histon scored three times on the counter and Bedworth scored on the counter against us as well.

“In a few games we have really struggled to deal with having time on the ball and dealing with counter attacks. It’s something we have got to look at.”

The Poppies are back in action on Tuesday night when they head to Slough Town for a re-arranged clash.