MARK Collier was determined to look at the bigger picture despite seeing his Chippenham Town side slip to their second Evo-Stik League Southern Premier Division defeat of the season yesterday.

Sam Mulready struck in each half to send the Bluebirds on their long trip home from King's Lynn reflecting on a 2-0 reverse, Chippenham slipping to fourth in the standings as a result.

A quarter of the way through the league campaign Collier's men are well placed towards the top of the table and Collier was keen to accentuate the positives ahead of away appointments at Kettering on Tuesday and at Uxbridge in the FA Cup third qualifying round next Saturday.

"We were certainly not at our best and a decent run has come to an end,'' said the Bluebirds chief.

"But there is a bigger picture and that is not looking too shabby.We've had a good start to the season and it's something like two defeats in 14 games which is pretty good.

"I was talking to their (King's Lynn's) manager and he seems to think they will beat most sides at home. If we'd played to our potential I think we could have caused them a few problems but we had too many players below par.''

Collier admitted the demands of the recent fixture list may have started to take their roll on his squad, with a tough FA Cup tie at Bradford last weekend being followed by a local tussle with Frome in midweek and the long trip to Norfolk.

"It's a long trip but there are no excuses because we knew we would have to travel,'' he added.

"In the first half I thought we played quite well, although we missed a couple of good chances, while they scored one of theirs.

"We were 1-0 down but I wasn't too concerned because we were playing quite well at the time. But we fell below par in the second half and the second goal killed the game off.

"We've got Kettering away and then Uxbridge now and we probably need to look at freshening things up on Tuesday.''