Bircham believes Leighton Town 'weren’t at the races’ in Cockfosters defeat

On what was a real off day for Town, goals from Joseph Entwistle-Wilkinson and Ethan Rookard were enough to give Cockfosters a 2-0 win at Bell Close and dampen the spirits of the 307 in attendance.

And Bircham felt it was just one of those days for his side who remain favourites to claim the Spartan South Midlands League title, being three points behind leaders Stotfold but having three games in hand.

Bircham said: “That’s football sometimes. We weren’t at the races at any stage, I think even from kick-off we just didn’t look at it.

"Hopefully it’s a lesson again. Last time it happened we went something like 17 league games unbeaten, so we need to do that again.

"It’s not panic stations, they wanted it more and they ‘beat us up’.”

After Cockfosters went in front on 35 minutes, things would go from bad to worse just before the break as Town went down to ten men. Oran Jackson was sent off on 44 minutes as he mistimed a last man challenge to stop a clear counter attack.

Bircham said: “The whole thing was avoidable, we didn’t defend it properly nor did we clear our lines.

"It’s difficult because you want to win all the time at all costs but you don’t really want to win just by doofing it all the time and we can’t do that, we haven’t got that in our armoury with the boys we’ve got, so we have to try and play, but we didn’t do either today and I thought Cockfosters thoroughly deserved it and I’ve no complaints over the result.”

Leighton are back in action on Tuesday night (14th) at Northampton Sileby Rangers in the Gladwish Challenge Trophy, before going to tenth-placed Tring Athletic in the league on Saturday.

They’ll then host Dunstable Town in the Premier Division Cup next Tuesday night.

Bircham added: “It’s a long old season with plenty of twists and turns and it’s alright getting all the pats on the back when it’s going great but when you have a stinker you’ve got to take ownership of that as well.”