Jimmy Dean vowed to ensure his team would fight until the very end after suffering a disappointing 2-0 defeat at home to Southern League Premier Central Division play-off rivals Harborough Town on Saturday.
The Tulips remain seven points outside the play-off zone but with only eight games to go.
“It’s incredibly difficult now with only eight rounds left but we don’t give up, we keep moving; we keep trying until there’s nothing left to play for,” he said.
“We have to reset and take one game at a time. We let the crowd down and I’ve not said that too much.
“Myself, the staff and the players should have given them a little bit more.”
Of the remaining matches, five are against teams currently ranked 18th to 22nd in the 22-team table but Dean insists they would offer just as much of a challenge as those against top-six sides AFC Telford, derby rivals Stamford and promotion outsiders Alvechurch.
The bottom-two placed teams – Biggleswade and Hitchin – are next up on the Tulips’ play-list and Dean knows his team will have to be fully in tune.
“Every game is an opportunity but we don’t look at the bottom five and think it’s an easy game” he said. “They all want to stay in this division and will be fighting for their lives.
“On Saturday, five or six people showed real endeavour but three or four were off it. It’s not where we want to be. To win these games we’ve got to think as a team, move as a team and play as a team and we didn’t do that for large periods of the game.”
Both the goals came as a result of errors, with Ben Stephens breaking the deadlock after 55 minutes and Tulips old boy, Tanzanian international Ben Starkie completing the scoresheet 21 minutes later.
“In the first half it was a really even game,” said Dean. “There wasn’t a lot in it and we got down the side three of four times. We thought we could hurt them through their full backs.
“We reacted really well to the half-time team talk for ten minutes and that was our best spell of the game. I thought we were getting on top but then we gave away a really poor goal. They walked past our defender and we had two players to put a foot on it but they didn’t and it ran through for them to score.”
With the wind at their backs, Dean feared the visitors would run away with it after that.
“We were fortunate not to concede another one after five or 10 minutes of sustained pressure but we were maybe thinking when they hadn’t scored, now we’d got an opportunity for the next 25-30 minutes to go and get something and get back into the game.
“But we gave away another poor goal; messing about in the middle of the park. The ball ran through and it was another poor goal to concede.
“We had a great chance straight after that, which was easier to score but they cleared it off the line when all we had to do was tap it in. That just summed up our day.
“They deserved the win but there was so much more we could have done and we hurt ourselves a lot.”
Keeper Aaron Chapman took the player of the match honours after pulling off a handful of tremendous saves to keep his side in the game and Dean said: “I’m pleased with Chappy. He’s been a bit up and down since he came in but he’s a fantastic goalkeeper and showed his value today.”
Tulips: Chapman, Clifton, Fox (Walker), Moore, Cartwright, Lawlor, Sembie-Ferris (Law), Freeman (Chettle), Cybulski, Sano-Sani, Nyahwema (Roberts). Sub: Sherif.
Attendance: 553.
Spalding battle for the ball during their 2-0 home defeat at the hands of Harborough Town. Photos by ADRIAN SMITH.
