Youth boss Eric Kinder spoke to us about the 2-1 defeat at Macclesfield:

"It's been a disappointing week for us, we can't get away from that.

Up until about four games ago we were probably in the driving seat - if you think about it we went down to Burnley and beat them and that gave us a really good chance of winning it.

Unfortunately for us we have hit a period where we can't score. Not only have we lost Andy Cook's goals, but Ryan Bowman is struggling along as well now. Cook had 30 odd to his name, and it was easy to forget that Bowman was going along nicely just behind him with 20 odd of his own.

Ryan is now our lead striker and that is a big step for him at the moment, with him being in his first year. He was working off Cook really well, and it's been a long season for him but, having said that, it will stand him in good stead in the long run.

Experience tells me that first years always struggle a bit at this stage of the season anyway. They have played a lot of games by now and they start to feel it, so it does become very hard for them. If we'd won the last few games and were still top of the table then adrenalin might have seen them through, but the defeat at Preston has really set us back. That carried on in to last Saturday and we do look a very tired side now. This is where a 16-man squad does work against you, but I still maintain that holding that number of players is the right thing to do.

If you look at it, we already have three of the present group through to a professional contract, with a good chance that there may be more, and that's what it is all about. Yes, it is nice to be successful as a team, but it is more important that we get some of these young players through the system and that they go on to establish themselves as part of our first-team squad.

To be fair to the second years in the Macclesfield game, they played well. Tom Aldred and Jonny Blake were both excellent and Simon Lakeland had another very good game. Conor Tinnion was a constant thorn in the side, so we have to be happy with how they played.

I think it has probably dawned on the lads that they can't now win the league, and that has dropped the energy levels a little bit. What we have to do is get over that and make sure that we keep going and finish the season off properly. If we do our job and win every game then we can see where that takes us.

As for the match, we started well and we had a really poor decision go against us in the first couple of minutes. Alex Mitchell is a great striker of the ball and he sent one forward. Our tactic is to play both centre forwards in what is technically an offside decision because, as we all know, you can't be offside from a goal kick. Unfortunately the linesman didn't know the rules and he flagged for offside. Ryan Bowman had actually collected the ball and scored, but the Ref stopped the play because he said he didn't know what the linesman had put his flag up for. He tried to apologise when he realised that it was an offside flag, but that doesn't really wash when you have just had a perfectly legitimate goal ruled out because of a lack of knowledge of the game.

That's actually gone against us on two or three occasions this season, and it is very frustrating. But, even though it is very frustrating, it shouldn't knock us out of our stride. However, it did, and the game became a very scrappy one. We went in at half time at 0-0 and that was probably a fair reflection on how things had gone after that incident.

We went one down after 50 minutes to the same kind of sucker punch that cost us a draw in the game against them earlier in the season. They launched a long throw to their tall centre forward and he laid it off for their runner to take it on. That's disappointing because we knew it was something that they liked to do, they had scored against us already by doing it, and we allowed it to happen again. We switched off for that one moment and we were suddenly a goal behind.

We equalised almost right away on 53 minutes when James Reid was brought down. The resulting penalty from Matt Duffy was saved but incredibly the Ref decided that the keeper had moved too early, and he made us take it again. I haven't seen that for years, but it worked in our favour because Duffy stepped up again and smashed it in.

Once that went in we felt that we'd be ok, but we gave a crazy goal away on 60 minutes and it cost us the game. Matt Duffy got caught when he tried to shield it out of play in our penalty area, but he got knocked off it and they took possession. Their lad cut it back towards their runner and he scored to put them in front again.

We huffed and puffed and we created a couple of half chances, but we didn't really get beyond them and it ended as a really disappointing defeat.

All we can say is that it is another part of the learning process and it shows what can happen if you drop the level of your performance. We have four games left to play and I don't want to see us just drift out of what has been a very, very good season.  

Possession wise we are still using the ball well, but we are struggling to finish things off in the final third. If we can start to turn the good approach play in to goals then the confidence will start to flow again, and we'll see the lads pick up.

James Reid gave us 90 minutes and he won us a penalty, so it will be good to get the chance to take him through pre-season and really get his fitness levels up. He showed us two or three good moments and he's one that will really benefit from the six or seven weeks that he'll do with us in the summer.

If we look at it overall, we are disappointed, but the only people interested in winning the title are the 16 lads in that dressing room, myself, Geoff Haugh and a handful of fans who watch us every time we play at home. What we have to remind ourselves about is that it would be awful to be in a position where we won some silverware but none of the players had progressed at the end of it. That would be the wrong thing to do.

This year it may be that we are winning nothing but we have got lads on to pro-contracts, and we as a club will take that every time.

As far as the league is concerned it is going to be near impossible to shift Wrexham, and I was really disrespectful to them earlier in the season. I had them as outsiders, but they have played really well and put themselves in a fantastic position. Finishing in the top three could be really hard for us now because Preston are on a roll but, however it pans out, it has still been a fantastic season for us."

United - Mitchell, Lakeland, Aldred, Cleary (Swinglehurst 75), Duffy, Law (Wood 60), Davison, Blake, Tinnion, Reid, Bowman (McDougall 68). Subs - Gillespie.