HAVING seen their team slip out of the top seven in the table, Braintree Town assistant manager Andy Porter admits that the pressure is on the Iron to get back to winning ways in Vanarama National League South.

However, with the top of the table still incredibly tight and the Iron only seven points off leaders Dartford, Porter knows that it won’t take much to reignite their play-off push - starting at struggling Bognor Regis Town on Saturday.

The Iron dropped to eighth in the table with a 2-0 defeat at home by Bath City last weekend and Porter said it was a game where they were second best all over the pitch, but he is confident they can bounce back and come back from West Sussex with three valuable points.

“The pressure is on us as we need a victory on Saturday,” said Porter.

“The league is tight still, though, and there are only seven points separating the top eight sides.

“We were disappointed to lose last weekend, but other results went our way and you know that if you get back-to-back wins you are right back in the mix.

“With the two games coming up being against sides towards the bottom of the division, you’d like to think that we can make league placings count, but we have seen results this year mean nothing can be taken for granted.

“Look at Hemel Hempstead losing to Poole last weekend - there are strong sides all the way through the league.

“But we will go to Bognor on Saturday looking for a positive result.

“Whenever Brad and I went there with Enfield, we always did well.

“It’s a nice pitch there and we will be confident.

“We will look to get the ball down and get the three points to get is back track.”

Porter said Billy Crook should be fit to return after illness kept him out against Bath last weekend, but Ricky Gabriel will be serving the last of a three-match ban and Josh Hill will have his fitness assessed ahead of the trip to Bognor after struggling with a strain in his hamstring.

The defeat by Bath means the Iron have not won in five games and have only won once in their last nine league outings.

Porter said a run like that can have an affect on some players’ confidence, but he, manager Brad Quinton and the coaching staff would work hard with their team in training this week.

He added: “We haven’t had a victory for a few games now, although the point we took at Havant and Waterlooville two weeks ago was a good one.

“But we’ll have a couple of decent training sessions this week and look to change that at the weekend.

“There are players whose heads can go down at times like this and that can rub off on others.

“So it’s our job to man manage players in different ways.

“Training will be hard with a lot of ball work and fitness and there will be a lot of shooting to get the boys finding the back of the net and getting that feeling back.

“It’s just hard work that will turn it around.

“We have to put last week behind us and work hard, chatting with the players one-on-one and as a team."