AFC Telford United boss rues missed opportunities

The Bucks would have moved within three points of the league leaders had they beaten relegation favourites Hitchin Town on Saturday, but despite leading three teams were held to a 3-3 draw by the Canaries.

And ahead of a trip to play-off chasers Stratford Town this week, Wilkin admitted his side cannot afford to keep passing up opportunities to pick up points.

“It is frustrating and annoying,” Wilkin bemoaned. “Players are at this level for a reason, and maybe managers too, but it’s always something I’m aware of that people think we can just rock up and take all three points.”

He added: “I’m afraid it’s not as easy as that, and I’ve been in the game long enough now to understand that and realise what the pitfalls are.

“I know players can be guilty of getting themselves in the mindset that things will take care of themselves, but they won’t, and we have to be right on the money each and every game.

“These are the challenges that we face, and more often than not players are playing at this level because they don’t have the ability to concentrate for a full 90 minutes.

“Ultimately that showed against Hitchin, but then against Halesowen we made no mistakes and understood what we needed to do against the ball.

“I’ve said for a long time that communication at this level is important, and I feel that we have a lot of players that are very quiet.

“That’s not necessarily the players that were responsible for the errors, but certainly I don’t think we concede the goals we have this season if we communicated better and organised better.”