MARK Collier says his Chippenham Town side need five more wins to ensure they remain in the National League South next season.

A difficult period has seen the club pick up a total of six points since the beginning of November, resulting in the Bluebirds heading towards the wrong end of the table.

Tuesday night’s 2-0 defeat to Poole Town cemented what has been a dreary month for Collier, who has not only seen his side fail to claim a win, but also have five fixtures postponed.

Despite the run of negative results, there are some positives for Town, who drew with both Braintree Town and table-toppers Dartford in January and with 15 fixtures to go, the manager still believes it is all to play for.

“On Tuesday we had too many players who didn’t perform. It is a tough place, a tough night and they were poor conditions,” said Collier, whose side are currently 18th in the league table.

“Sometimes you need to stand up and be counted and I thought three or four of ours were left wanting a little bit.

“I said to the players you have to perform to a level individually. If you do that, then we have an opportunity to do well as a team.

“If we don’t, we are going to be in difficulty. The league placing means we are in a difficult position, but I want to make sure everyone stays calm about it.

“We have 15 games to go, we need to stay together as one and relish the challenge which is in front of us.

“People talk about 40 points. I think we should get to 45 if we can and five more wins will take us to 43, I’d like to think we can get five wins out of 15 games.”

Saturday’s fixture with Gloucester City was one of six games to be called off in January for Chippenham.

While there is nothing Collier could have done to prevent it, he admits it has been frustrating that Chippenham have had such a disrupted run of matches.

“Our home record is relatively good. We have some difficult trips and I acknowledge that but we can compete,” he added.

“We didn’t get a chance to build on those draws. Once we got them we were training and ready to rumble.

“Especially after the Dartford game, which was a particularly impressive performance, we trained for it and worked on our shape only for it to get called off.

“Then the next one gets called off so it does set you back a little bit, fragmented is a word which I think sums up January.

“We had two very good performances but it seems to be two steps forward and one step back. It’s a small step back but, I can’t stress enough how much we need to relish those 15 games which we have left.”