STEVE WITHERSPOON admits he is starting to look at next season after seeing his Brentwood side stretch their winless run to seven games.
The Blues failed to break down ten-man Harlow Town at a soggy Brentwood Centre Arena on Saturday, having to settle for a goalless draw.
They have scored just twice in their last seven, and a frustrated Witherspoon admits they need to find their shooting boots again.
"Whereas six weeks ago we couldn't stop scoring now we can't start scoring," he said. "It's very frustrating. We controlled the game in the second half, we got into some good areas but the final ball wasn't good enough at times, and when it was we found all sorts of ways of not hitting the target.
"Scoring goals wins matches. In all these games, except for the Maldon game, we've been in with a shout in every single one of them and it's frustrating.
"We pick the same players out on the pitch who were getting six goals, four goals, five goals but it just doesn't seem to be happening."
Brentwood made a strong start to the game, with their widemen particularly prevalent, but they lacked a cutting edge throughout the game, with the closest they came being when Steve Butterworth's second half effort was disallowed for offside – a decision Witherspoon was disappointed with.
"I thought the goal was a perfectly good goal, but the linesman's put his flag up and that's that," he added.
"But there wasn't enough quality performances to win the game of football.
"How many crosses did we put in in the first quarter of an hour? Seven or eight? But we didn't actually get on the end of any of them.
"That's what I said at half-time, where's the desire? It hurts to make those runs into the box but you've got to do it – when you get those crosses into the box, if there's four or five in there the percentage of getting on the end of it is higher."
The Blues still have five games in hand on fifth-placed Heybridge Swifts, but the 22-point gap is probably going to be too much to make up with 16 games to play.
And Witherspoon said: "You can turn it around, but we are looking at next year now, bringing certain people in and giving them a run, so at the start of next year they are ready for this standard of football. There are three or four in the U18s who will be coming in, blooding them, giving them 15 or 16 games and they'll be up and running for next season."
One positive for Witherspoon was that the game went ahead on a soggy day which saw many games around the county called off – avoiding the need to fit another fixture in to an already-congested schedule.
"People were over here from 9.30 in the morning working on the pitch and they did a fantastic job to get it on," he said.
