Mike Newell believes he has not seen the best of Wrexham yet during his short tenure at the club and has backed the Dragons to arrest their poor run of form.
Wrexham have lost all four of their matches since the turn of the New Year, their latest defeat seeing them crash out of the FA Trophy on Saturday against National League leaders Leyton Orient.
Three successive league defeats had seen Wrexham miss the chance to climb to the top of the standings, while Saturday’s reverse now means the Dragons have failed to score in their last four outings.
And Dragons assistant manager Newell says the Dragons must deal with their disappointment and bounce back quickly.
“There is never a relief when you get knocked out of a competition,” said Newell.
“It hurts when you get beat whatever you are doing, it might be a blessing in disguise, I don’t know, but it doesn’t feel like that at the moment, because we have just lost.
“We have to knuckle down and get back to basics because the basics are what have got Wrexham where they are, which is in a really good position for the last three or four months of the season to challenge for an automatic position or a play-off position.
“Losing always hurts, it doesn’t matter whether you are playing head tennis, five-a-side, it is not a feeling that you want to have.
“Any team that has success will, over a nine month season, have a dodgy period. Whether it is Manchester City, or Liverpool whether you are Salford City or Wrexham, everybody will have a bad period. We are not making excuses and not using that as an excuse, it is about how we deal with it and how the players deal with it.
“I don’t think I’ve seen the best of Wrexham yet. I know we beat Salford 5-1 (on Boxing Day) but for the lads to have got themselves into the position they are in at this stage of the season, from what I’ve seen in the last two weeks or so I don’t think I’ve seen the best of them.
“Let’s hope it is a little bit of a lull. There has been a change in personnel and change in manager, a few new faces coming in, once that everybody settles down I don’t think there will be any problems.”
Orient booked their place in the third round of the trophy after Matt Harrold’s second half penalty, Mark Carrington judged to have felled James Brophy in the box.
Newell had now qualms over referee Peter Gibbons’ decision to award the O's a spot kick, but felt the Dragons should have had one themselves in the first half, Charlie Lee blocking a goalbound Luke Young effort with his arm.
Newell added: “To be quite honest I thought their penalty, from where I am, it looked a penalty.
“I don’t know, you guys might have had the benefit of replays, but when the lad goes down we think it is a penalty.
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“So you can’t really argue with the referee’s decision, there were a couple of other things that I might have argued with, but not that one.
“And as far as ours, yes we thought it was a penalty, but that is the way the game is.”
