ALAN Paris has admitted that Burnham are struggling to get a settled side out this season after a 3-1 defeat against Fairford Town on Saturday.

The Blues are still searching for a first home win in the Hellenic Premier Division and their most recent loss leaves them in 17th position in the league table.

Dan Bailey scored twice for Fairford and Aaron Dainton was also on target against 10-man Burnham at The Gore.

Blues manager Paris bemoaned to the Observer: “We’ve got to be confident if we can get our best side out but at the moment we can’t get a settled team.

“If we can get our best eight or nine players out then we can compete with anyone in this league, so it’s very disappointing.

“After the good win against Woodley it was a chance for us to create a little gap at the bottom but we were unable to do that.

“We dominated the first half but Fairford had one chance and put the ball in the back of the net. Our keeper had nothing else to do and we had a few chances as well.

“In the second half we got back to 1-1 and then went behind again to a wonder strike. You’ve just got to hold your hands up because strikes like that don’t come about too often and there’s nothing you can really do about it.

“We then had a player sent off, but before then we were still in the game and the better team.

“As soon as it went to 1-1 it was always going to be game on, but we didn’t penetrate Fairford enough.

“It’s frustrating because we were without a lot of the players that did really well against Woodley. We lost our strike force to unavailability and there was not enough drive.”

Burnham now face back-to-back away matches in the league with trips to Brackley Town Saints this Saturday (3pm) and then Binfield on Monday evening (7.45pm).

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