WHEN the final whistle went at Salisbury last Saturday, I can honestly say that's as disappointed as I've felt since I joined the club back in October 2008.

Having dominated the match, it was a hammer blow to lose two points in the manner we did.

The penalty decision was a poor one; Curtis Obeng actually kicked the ball against the player's stomach yet the referee somehow determined that it was a penalty.

I couldn't believe it when he pointed to the spot, but ultimately we only have ourselves to blame for not having wrapped up the points earlier.

We started brightly and created chance after chance in the opening period and on what was a difficult surface, we played some good football.

I was delighted with the application shown by the players, particularly against a Salisbury side that have been on an impressive run of form themselves of late.

At the interval I told the lads to keep doing what they were doing and that ultimately they would get their rewards.

And that's exactly what happened when Curtis' shot deflected into the path of Christian Smith who almost walked the ball home into an empty net.

It was a goal Christian fully deserved because of the number of runs he kept making into the danger zone.

It's a side to his game that we've been working on because we need to get more goals from all areas of the team, not just the strikers.

Almost immediately Salisbury were reduced to ten men and from there on in we should have been capable of closing the game out.

Andy Mangan had a great opportunity to make it 2-0 after good work from Luke Holden out on the left flank but he just couldn't keep his header down.

That said, we had other chances as well but it's been our lack of goals that has let us down this term.

Bringing Andy in will go a long way to addressing this but we know there's a lot more work to do in the summer, although I'm happier now with the squad than I was this time last year.

Defensively we look a lot tighter and I feel we are not far away from having a good side. Our 17 clean sheets are certainly something to build on but we do need a creative midfielder as well.

The job cannot be done in five minutes and as a manager you learn something every day.In this league you must defend set-pieces and it always helps to score the first goal.

By way of example, in our last home game we were more than a match for Stevenage Borough - who adopt a physical and direct approach in a controlled manner - so it's a case of trying to achieve the right balance.

Some of the pitches we play on make it difficult to pass the ball around and there are those teams that set out to frustrate us.

If you don't score first against them, it's incredibly hard to break them down, but when teams give us a game, we invariably look a much better team.

So we need to be strong, but I want us to entertain our supporters as much as possible.

I still haven't given up hope that we can make the play-offs.

Yes, it's a tall order but I know the players here are capable of stringing a run of five or six wins together, to get us within striking distance of the top teams.

That's why I decided not to join up with the Welsh squad in midweek.

John Toshack recognises that at this stage of the campaign I need to be putting all my energies into what we can achieve here at Wrexham and it was good of him to release me from my coaching commitments ahead of the friendly with Sweden.

And hopefully, six points from these next two matches will keep us in the hunt.

Enjoy the game,

Dean