MANAGER Dave Ferris says his Chippenham Park side need to rediscover their philosophy as they go ‘back to the drawing board’ following Saturday’s disappointing home defeat to Keynsham Town.

Mark Robinson and Ryan Campbell both struck in the first half to twice level the scores but after a visiting defender had been sent off for a professional foul, Park failed to make the man advantage count as they spurned a host of goalscoring opportunities.

Ferris’ men were punished by two Keynsham counter-attacks and Ferris reckons that there is plenty of work to do at Hardenhuish Park after Saturday’s ‘dreadful’ display.

“We had plenty of work to do before the weekend and I don’t like to use the term ‘pleased’ but if we had won the game 5-4, that would have papered over a lot of our problems,” said the Park boss.

“Our strength has always been playing as a team, not as individuals, and we just haven’t been doing that. We’ve conceded 15 goals in six games and that just isn’t going to get you into the top half of the table.

“Last season, we started really well and then tailed off midway through the season with some poor performances. We need to work on things and get ourselves back to where we should be.

“Cheddar played at 100 miles per hour against us but it was a lot more pedestrian on Saturday, and Keynsham still carved our defence apart.

“When they went down to ten men, we thought that we’d go on and score a few but we missed chance after chance – we had about 15 shots to their five and they’ve scored four goals.

“We showed their winger on to his stronger foot, rather than his weaker foot, and he curled one into the top corner, and then they caught us on the break again.”

Ferris’ side travel to Cribbs next weekend and could welcome back defender Dan Price, who has spent the start of the season with Wiltshire League outfit Trowbridge Wanderers.

The Park chief added: “We’ll have to make sure that we perform a lot better, just to compete with Cribbs.

“They’re a side that play good football on a nice pitch and if we play like we have done in the last few weeks, they’ll have a fun day.”