Kevin Watson says Ashford are facing a test of character going into the Christmas period.

The Nuts & Bolts have slipped to 10th in Isthmian South East after three successive league defeats.

Their latest loss came at Phoenix Sports on Saturday, going down 3-1 on a disappointing afternoon.

Morale was lifted, however, by a 4-2 League Cup win over Westfield on Tuesday night, thanks to goals from Danny Parish, Harvey Brand, Rhyle Ovenden and Ben Gorham.

Ashford host Hythe on Boxing Day and Erith & Belvedere on Saturday, December 30 before visiting Watson’s former club, Herne Bay, on New Year’s Day (all 3pm).

Ashford boss Watson said: “I fundamentally believe when you go through spells like this in a season it’s about the character of the collective group and the character of individuals, and the word we’re using a lot is accountability.

“That starts with me and it feeds through the management team and the players.

“This will be the test, I think, because we’ve not been in this situation where we’ve lost three on the bounce, so we will learn about our strength as a group.

“I don’t tend to have high player turnover. I’ve never really believed in that.

“That’s not to say we don’t look to recruit if we can find players that are the right personalities and the right fit to come in, but we’re also loyal to players.”

Ashford lost one in seven and seemed to be headed in the right direction before their mini-slump.

They went down 2-0 at home to Cray Valley and blew a 3-1 lead in a 4-3 defeat by Lancing before slipping up at Phoenix.

Tariq Ossai pulled a goal back after the Nuts & Bolts trailed 2-0 but the hosts added a late third.

“At any level, if you lose three on the bounce, it gives others an opportunity to make ground up and you lose some places in the league, so that’s disappointing,” said Watson.

“There’s still a lot of league games to play, obviously, but we need to turn that form around sooner rather than later because otherwise that gap between yourselves and the teams above you begins to open and stretch.

“We had been on a good run before these defeats.

“You look at the nature of the defeats.

“Against Cray, it’s two good strikes from outside the box, and then Lancing we were winning 3-1 and threw away a good advantage.

“We knew what sort of game Phoenix was going to be and thought we’d prepared for that, but then we weren’t able to put in the desired type of performance to get a result.

“It’s never an easy place to go. We were disappointed because we felt we had enough opportunities to win the game and didn’t convert them, and from our perspective the goals they scored we felt were avoidable.

“You think that about most goals you concede, though, don’t you? From their perspective, they were good goals.

“It’s disappointing but we’ve got lots of games left to make amends and pick up points and we’ll need to do that.”

There was a change in goal at Phoenix, with Chris Lewington drafted in at short notice as cover for Jacob Russell.

Ashford released a statement saying Russell “informed a member of the management team late on Friday afternoon/early evening of his wishes to not play”.

Watson confirmed on Tuesday afternoon that Russell remained a contracted player at Homelands.

Lewington played under Watson at Cray Valley and was happy to help out against Phoenix.

“We felt we needed to bring somebody in at short notice and knew he could potentially be available, so we acted on that and got it done,” said the manager.

“I’ve worked with Chris before, so I understand and know him and he knows the way we try to work, so it was a good match given the timing.

“For his debut in a difficult game at Phoenix, I thought he did well.

“He wasn’t at fault for any of the goals, he made a couple of good saves and his communication was really good.

“Someone like him can go into a football environment with his experience and his personality and fit in quite well, which was important for that game.”