THE goals will come, don't worry about that -- I know we haven't scored in our last three matches, but I'm convinced we've got enough fire power to start hitting the net on a regular basis.

And I'm hoping we'll be bang on target tonight when we visit Southend United for another Nationwide League Division Three match.

I don't know why people are making a problem out of it. After all, we only had one striker available for our drawn match at Barnet on Saturday, that was Stewart Hadley.

Ian Foster is out injured and Tony Bird was suspended so I don't think people should start reading too much into our goalscoring situation.

All good teams start from the back. I think it's important that we've proved we can defend against the better sides in the Third Division and, of course, against Walsall in the Worthington.

To fair we didn't create that many chances against Barnet, but we had a couple of really good opportunities which, on another day, we would have taken.

We could have come away with a win which would have been a great result, so I'm not particularly worried about the fact that we have gone three games now without a goal. I'm sure they'll come once we get everybody fit and firing on all cylinders.

I know people are expecting big things from us this season and I can live with expectations, but they have got to be sensible.

It is a new league for us and I have said all along that the first third of the season is going to be very important to us.

I think as new boys it's vital to get points on the board and to go to places like Barnet and Brighton and come back with results. And that's what we are doing.

Then, after the first 15 matches, we'll know exactly where we stand. As a new team in the league we don't want to be going into games losing them and then finding ourselves in the bottom six because that could shape your season.

People must remember as well that we have got a number of newcomers in the squad, players we have brought in who are going to be very influential. They are going to be the ones who are going to shape our attacking play.

And I'm thinking now of people like Ian Bogie, Andy Ducros and Barry Horne, so it's going to take time for everybody else to get used to them.

Another point, of course, is that Bogie and Ducros didn't do enough pre-season work with us, so they are struggling a little bit.

They just haven't got that spark about their play, but over the next five or six weeks we'll get our energy back and we'll improve no end.

One or two supporters may have been surprised to have seen a new name among our substitutes on Saturday -- Dylan Kerr.

He was released by Kilmarnock in the summer and I know he's a quality player, good on the ball and he's got a lovely left foot.

With the injury problem we've have with our left back Scott Stamps I've signed Dylan on a 28-day contract and we'll just have to wait and see if it goes beyond that.

Going back to the Barnet game for a moment, though, I thought it was a good result for us and the players were delighted with a draw.

All we allowed them was a 40 yard shot in the first half and an header in the second period that went wide and that was it.