WITTON head to Belper this afternoon with Anthony Sheehan stressing the importance of staying focused.

The Albion boss blames poor concentration for his side’s sequence of four successive defeats since he replaced Brian Pritchard in the dugout earlier this month.

They have conceded 16 goals during that losing run, including five at home to Trafford last weekend.

“The lads have been hurting,” said Sheehan.

“And they’re eager to put things right.

“Sometimes as a player it’s important to have a break off the back of a couple defeats to assess what has gone wrong and work on making sure it doesn’t happen again.

“That doesn’t mean we’ve pointed the finger at our back four and the goalkeeper, because balls have been reaching them far too easily.

“If we can cut out those out, and be alert to what is happening on the pitch then we’ll go a long way to solving the problems we’ve had.”

He watched his squad beat neighbours Knutsford in a practice match on Tuesday, during which front man Alex Titchiner was on target.

Injury has restricted him to a single start so far this season, but Sheehan believes the 23-year-old is in better shape now.

“Titch scored a couple of goals and looks better for it,” he said.

“We’re all keen to see him do now what we know he can.

“The mood is good; the lads we’ve brought in on loan are more settled now and we can move forward knowing this is the group we have to work with.

“We’ve drawn a line under the past 10 days or so, and are thinking only about Belper.

“After a change of manager, they might be galvanised like we were after Pritch left.

“We’ve spoken about being ready for that, particularly as they’ll want to perform at home for their supporters.

“It’s not going to be easy, and we know we need to be better in every position than we were against Trafford seven days ago.”

Defensive duo Sam Barnes and Tom Eckersley (both hamstring) are ruled out by injury, while Neil Harvey continues to serve a suspension as punishment for his dismissal in the win at Barwell three weeks ago.

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