Jai Reason believes he is getting close to reproducing the sort of form which made him such an integral part of Dover's squad last season.

The 29-year-old midfielder managed six goals from 24 starts during the last campaign but has yet to open his account in 2019/20.

He went close on several occasions during Saturday's 2-0 home National League defeat to FC Halifax, most notably when his second-half free-kick was beaten away by keeper Sam Johnson.

Reason, who signed for Whites a year ago this month, explained: "I need to get on the scoresheet, to get that off my back but regarding my performances I've had a few assists this season (three so far) and I think I'm slowly building back into it, the form I had last season.

"It's a long old season and I'm not worried. Probably early on I wasn't getting into the right positions (to score).

"I don't know if that was because of my fitness or what, but I feel fitter and stronger after the 10-12 games now.

"I think today I got in better positions to get the shots off but I think it will slowly come. As long as we're winning that's more important than me."

Reason agreed with boss Andy Hessenthaler that the Halifax game was lost in the first half but he remains confident Whites will turn their home form around.

He explained: "For some reason at home we can't seem to get a winning formula.

"I thought first half we were second best and in the second half when we're chasing the game we were a little bit better but we can't start like that, we're a lot better than that.

• Home form needs to change
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"It's a hard one to take coming off the back of two good (away) wins (against Hartlepool and Maidenhead) and I think we've got to dissect it in the next couple of days.

"You try to find positives but that's not us, the standard first half.

"If we could have nicked a goal just after half-time I think it could have been a different game.

"We need to find a way (to win at home) but I've got every confidence in that squad in there that we will find it."

Whites host Notts County on Saturday and Reason expects Dover to bounce back. The former Eastleigh man also thinks they have enough quality to go the distance in the play-off race.

He said: “We do need to find something at home I think the stats say that but we’ll dust ourselves down, look at what we can do better and get ready for Saturday.

“They’re all big games, the league is so open this year. You look at the clubs from last season (who did well), the Solihulls, the Fyldes and they’ve had a tough start so I think this league is wide open.

“We’ve got enough in that dressing room, it’s still early on and come the end of the season we’ll be there or thereabouts.”

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