De Girolama sidelined as injuries bite for struggling Buxton

But team manager Craig Elliott is refusing to make excuses after two more defeats in four days and the team he put out in the 1-0 defeat at promotion-chasing AFC Fylde on Tuesday night shared his determination to stay optimistic.

“We showed a disciplined shape, frustrated them for long periods and created some good chances.” he said.

“I was proud of the application. If we continue to play like that we'll put points on the board, no problem. The tide might be turning.

“There are seven or eight teams scrapping near the bottom of the league and looking to get on a good run, us included, and tonight gave us positives to work with.

“I now want to bring in more pace and width. No disrespect to the current squad, and we'll be continuing to build on their considerable talents and reinforce confidence, but I'd like to add new strengths, although it's difficult at this stage of the season. We know we must keep on improving.”

There were no points to reward the Bucks' fighting efforts, but it was certainly no disgrace to lose so narrowly away to a top side.

The set-piece Fylde goal was scored on the hour when Nick Haughton put a corner to the near post for Pierce Bird to attack and head into the far corner of the net.

Afterwards, the crisp-passing Bucks pushed forward as often as they could, in search of the elusive equaliser in front of their sizeable group of travelling supporters while goalkeeper Theo Richardson was called on twice to make fine saves in the last quarter, as Fylde continued to show their upper-table class against the purposeful visitors.

On Saturday, after looking the more likely in a goalless first half, Buxton slid to a 2-0 home defeat against AFC Telford United.

It was struggling Telford's first three points away from home this season.

The injury issues meant three loan players were used by the Bucks, the latest temporary recruit being Jordan Windass from Oldham Athletic.

Josh is the brother of Sheffield Wednesday striker Josh and son of Dean, whose goals played a major part in Hull City's promotion to the Premier League in 2008.

Afterwards, Elliott said: “We had injuries and unavailability to cope with and we were down to 10 men for the last 25 minutes after Diego was hurt.

“But we need to start getting things in place quickly.

We can't feel sorry for ourselves and have to stick together and improve for the next game.”

Hereford are the visitors to the Tarmac Silverlands on Saturday, 3pm kick-off.