CARL Heeley is determined Worcester City will not be tagged a “nearly team” in their bid for success.

City have taken just two points from matches against the five teams in the Blue Square Bet North play-off places this season — draws against Bradford Park Avenue and Guiseley.

In losing 1-0 to Halifax at St George’s Lane on Saturday, having previously lost to Chester and Brackley this term, they dropped to seventh in the table.

On each occasion, Worcester have given a good account of themselves, but have been unable to land that elusive victory.

Heeley, however, is fed up with falling short because he believes they are more than capable of beating their promotion rivals.

The City manager said: “We need to get a win. Somebody might tell me I’m looking at it with blue and white specs on, but I don’t see that Halifax are better than us.

“What I do see is they took their chance and we didn’t take ours, although their chance should never have come.

“I don’t want to be a nearly team, I want to start beating these sides because I don’t think they’re better than us.

“We got beaten on Saturday and that’s gut wrenching because we shouldn’t have lost with the chances we had, and their opportunity came from a free-kick we should have had.

“I’m not going to give in on this because I believe we can start knocking these big sides over in the near future.”

He added: “I think we need a little bit of luck and we’ve got to score more goals.

“It’s not quite going for us at the moment, but there’s only one way you get that to happen, you just keep sticking together, working hard and believing in what youre doing.”

Meanwhile, striker Alex Meechan has been released by the club following the arrivals of forward Kyle Patterson and centre-half Graham Hutchison.

Hutchison, who suffered double vision against Halifax following a blow to the head, is on a one-month loan from Birmingham City, while Patterson is on loan from Nuneaton until the end of February.

Heeley said: “I’ve got a budget to stick to so unfortunately Meech has been the one that’s had to go. It’s not a nice thing to do, it’s not something you enjoy in the game but we’ve got to balance the books and unfortunately there has to be a casualty.”