CHESHAM United are still waiting to catch fire this season after slipping 11 points behind the Southern Premier League leaders last weekend.

They drew a blank in front of goal for the fourth match in seven as Dorchester held them to a 0-0 draw.

Oddly, they have hit three goals in each of the other three games as manager Andy Leese continues to wrestle with the conundrum.

He said: “We’re getting better with each game and I know it will happen. The only thing I don’t know is when that will be. It might be this Saturday and it might be in the second half of the season.

“But it will definitely happen because of all the hard work we’re putting in on the training ground.

“It’s down to the players now to start taking the message on board otherwise we just keep saying the same things.”

Replacing the likes of James Potten, Drew Roberts and Chris Dillon doesn’t happen overnight, but Leese believes he has the players to do it with attacking midfielder Dave Pearce making his debut against Dorchester after signing on loan from Hemel Hempstead the day before.

He said: “We’re defensively sound, but we’re not as fluid going forward as I’d like us to be.

“We had a good 15-20 minute spell against Dorchester but we need to take our chances.

“We’ve got the second best defensive record in the league so we’ve got a good platform and that’s fine, but we need to take advantage of it at the other end.”

They host Bideford on Saturday and Hitchin on Tuesday.

Leese said: “We know that if you let a big points gap build up it can be hard to claw back, but we’ve got two home games and have got to look at getting maximum points from both.”

Ryan Blake and Dan Braithwaite could both be fit, but Mark Nwokeji is out after suffering concussion in a collision with the keeper which left him needing 14 stitches in his lip.”