Manager Chris Kinnear could not hide his disappointment after seeing Dover surrender their five-game winning run in the Vanarama National League at Braintree on Tuesday.

However, with his side sitting third in the table, Kinnear is not dwelling on the 1-0 defeat but is instead looking ahead with optimism to Saturday’s game – at home to Macclesfield.

He said: “You have good ones, you have bad ones – unfortunately this was one of the latter, but there is no point harping on about it.

“It’s no good us all moping around and feeling sorry for ourselves and I won’t be having any of that.

“It’s gone now, so we’ve got to move on. We’ve got Saturday’s game against Macclesfield Town to concentrate on, so we go again.

He added “The important thing is that we’ve got to take what we’ve done to get those five wins, and all the positives from doing it, and go again.

“We have to look forward, not back.

“And besides, we are still third after other results went our way on Tuesday, so it’s not all doom and gloom – far from it.”

Kinnear’s side left Essex with an injury concern ahead of the clash with Macclesfield at Crabble (3pm).

Jaydon Gibbs came off early in the second half with what Kinnear described a ‘stiff back’.

The right-back was replaced by Sam Magri, who was making his first appearance after missing the previous two games due to making his international debut for Malta under-21s last week.

Tyrone Sterling will miss Saturday’s game through suspension after his yellow card at Braintree, but fellow defender Sean Raggett will return after sitting out that defeat, again through a one-match suspension.

Macclesfield will head south in plenty of confidence after extending their unbeaten run to five games on Tuesday with a 1-0 win at home against Gateshead.

The Silkmen moved up to 11th, but are just four points behind Whites.

Kinnear is well aware of the threat they pose.

He said: “They started the season slowly but have certainly picked up. We didn’t do well against them either last season – we lost twice!

“It will be good to change that statistic.”