HIGHWORTH Town manager Jeff Roberts says that his team must toughen up defensively if they are to end the losing run that they are on, ahead of Saturday’s trip to Bristol Manor Farm.

The Worthians were undone by two late goals in mid-week as they exited the Wiltshire Senior Cup at the hands of Swindon Supermarine, but will look to bounce back against struggling Bristol tomorrow.

Town are winless in the league since mid-October, when they defeated Chippenham Park 2-0, and currently sit midway between a play-off spot and the relegation zone.

And while scoring goals hasn’t necessarily been a problem for Roberts’ men, keeping them out is top of the manager’s priority list.

Roberts said: “Going forward, we are very dangerous, and we have a lot of pace in forward areas. We just need to tighten up our defence a little bit.

“Leon Morrison only came into the side last week.

“He’s only 17, but we put him at centre back in mid-week and I thought he gave a good account of himself against Supermarine.

“The defensive side of it, that is the biggest area we need to work on at the moment.”

Roberts is keen to bring in some fresh faces ahead of the weekend’s game to boost an injury-ravaged Highworth squad and has asked for help from their football league neighbours at SN1.

He said: “We’re maybe looking at bringing in another defender and possibly a centre midfielder to give us that little bit more bite in midfield.

“We have Chris Taylor in there at the moment, but we need someone else in there with him who can break things up for us and get us moving.

“We are looking at bringing in three new signings just to strengthen up. One from Supermarine (Sam Morris) and two hopefully coming on loan from Swindon Town.

“We’ve got about seven or eight injured at the moment, so it is a massive stress on the squad and we have got a very small squad as it is, so hopefully we can get those players in and strengthen areas that we need to strengthen.

“We’ve got a long way to go to where we want to be, we have a lot of young lads here and it’s just a case of being patient with them really.”