Knaresborough Town's poor run of recent form is no cause for panic, insists Paul Stansfield

Knaresborough Town suffered a 3-0 home loss to Staveley Miners Welfare last time out. Pictures: Gerard Binks

The Manse Lane club lost out to Eccleshill United and Silsden last week before suffering a 3-0 home reverse against Staveley Miners Welfare on Saturday.

That result means that Boro have finished up on the losing side in five of their opening seven league fixtures so far this term, form that has seen them drop down to 16th in the table.

Stansfield, however, believes that his players’ performances have not been anywhere near as bad as results would suggest.

Knaresborough Town manager Paul Stansfield.

“It’s strange at the moment, we’re not playing particularly badly,” he said.

“We’re just getting punished for individual errors, for not taking our chances and not making an impression in crucial moments during games.On Saturday, Staveley had three shots and scored three times.

“You have to be really careful about getting too carried away with a few bad results because then everyone can start to panic.

“I’m already sick of people saying to me ‘how have you lost that one?’. We just need to keep working hard. We’ll work on our finishing in training this week and on keeping our shape. We’ll get there.”

Knaresborough’s cause hasn’t been helped by the unavailability of a number of players in recent weeks, nor the exit of Dan Thirkell, one of the club’s more experienced and most influential members of their their squad.

“We have been low on bodies, which hasn’t helped, so we are looking at bringing a couple in,” Stansfield added.

“We are working hard to make that happen. We’re close and I think we’ll get deals sorted in the next week or so.

“There aren’t specific positions that we need to strengthen, I just feel we need to add more players to the squad.

“It’s always disappointing when one of your lads wants to speak to another club, but I think it was was the right move for Thirks to go back to Harrogate Railway. That is his club. It’s the best decision for both parties.”

Next up for Boro is a trip to top-of-the-table Yokshire Amateur on Saturday, 3pm kick-off.

“They’re one of the best sides in the division, we’re looking forward to the test,” Stansfield said.

"They've got some high-profile players for this level, they're very strong, but we usually play well against the better teams.

"We're working on a game-plan and, if we can execute it properly, then I'm confident that we can come away with something."