Ducks boss Creaser admits to struggles but remains confident he can keep Aylesbury up

With nine games to go the Ducks are outside the relegation zone but only by virtue of a slightly better goal difference than local rivals Leighton Town, with those two four points clear of bottom side North Greenford United.

Aylesbury have lost their last three games, including Saturday’s 1-0 defeat to Godalming Town, but Creaser remains upbeat.

“I’ve got absolutely no doubt that we’ve got the ability to stay up,” said the United boss this week. “It’s a case of the players believing in themselves and performing and working extremely hard.

“We won at St Ives a few weeks ago which was a totally unexpected result so we know what we’re capable of but it’s just being able to field a side consistently to be able to do it week in, week out.

“You always have to work hard to reap any reward and if we go out and apply ourselves and do the right things in the right way than I have no doubt that we’ll stay in this division.”

Creaser took charge of Aylesbury in October when previous manager Tony Joyce stepped down.

“It’s been challenging, to say the least, for no other reason than unavailabilities and injuries and being able to field a consistent team has proved difficult,” added Creaser.

“Our focus is certainly on trying to stay in the league. We’ll do all we can between now and the end of the season and we’ve got nine games to try and get as many points as we can.

“When things change in any line of work, people come and go and you lose people along the way for one reason or another.

“I don’t think it’s any secret that we’ve had a lot of injuries but some things are out of control.”

Aylesbury were on the wrong end of another tight scoreline on Saturday when debutant Jake Kempton fired Godalming to a 1-0 victory.

Creaser continued: “The bottom line is that they scored and we didn’t.

“A fair result would probably have been a draw but Godalming went about their business well and had a few chances, as did we.

“Lea Coulter had one tipped over the bar in the first 10 minutes and we had a couple of half chances after that but in the scheme of things, if it had been a boxing match, they might have won on points.

“You get punished when you make stupid errors and silly mistakes and that’s what cost us so we have nobody else to blame apart from ourselves.”