MIDFIELDER Lee Sawyer says Chelmsford City must sort out their second half starts if they are to win games in the Conference South this season.
The Clarets have given away penalties in back-to-back games straight after the break, with the previous week's one missed at Bromley as they won 1-0.
But in Saturday's 4-0 defeat by Boreham Wood, Mark Hawkes' men were not so lucky as Luke Garrard stepped up to send substitute keeper Nik Freund the wrong way.
Sawyer said: "You can't come out after half-time and do what we did. It seems to be a bit of a problem coming back after half-time. I don't know what it is but it is up to us to sort it out now.
"I thought we did well in the first half, similar to the way that we started against Bromley last week.
"When you are away you don't get a lot of patience on the ball but we were doing well, right up until they scored that first goal, where a couple of us should have gone out to the corner and the keeper dropped it."
The Clarets were the masters of their own downfall on Saturday, gifting the league leaders all four of their goals.
Sawyer added: "The goals we gave away were terrible, kids' stuff really and you can't do that in any league. We need to sharpen up and we can't keep doing that, otherwise we will find ourselves in a bad position.
"I think everything that could have gone wrong for us actually did.
"It is fine to look at the score-line and it says 4-0 but I thought we were happy with what we were doing right up until they scored.
"If you look at the results it does look inconsistent but I think we will be all right."
With Glen Southam moving to Sutton United earlier this month, Hawkes has the option of keeping Sawyer – on loan until November from Sutton – at Melbourne Stadium for the rest of the season.
Sawyer has played every minute of the campaign this season and is enjoying a more central role in the team.
The 25-year-old said: "I am enjoying playing for the manager, I have played every 90 minutes so far, and so staying on will be something I will look at when my loan ends.
"I much prefer being in the middle of the park, somewhere that I feel that I am in the game at all times.
"I think I have been doing well in that position and want to stay there for the rest of the season.
"Obviously, if I want to stay in that position though I am going to have to start scoring some goals, so that is something that I am looking to do."
