Manager Ray Turner is desperate to solve Faversham’s forward crisis after seeing Town’s hot home scoring form go stone cold on the road.

Mild-mannered Turner took the unusual step for him of publicly criticising his players after seeing his side go down 1-0 at inconsistent Ramsgate in Ryman League Division 1 South on Tuesday following up Saturday’s goalless draw at top-half rivals Corinthian Casuals.

He said: “I’m not one who publicly speaks about my players, I tend to leave it all in the dressing room but I think we let ourselves down on Tuesday, which doesn’t happen very often.

“We had a decent first half and created some chances but we gave away a sloppy goal and once they went ahead they held on to their goal pretty comfortably to be honest. We can’t be a side who only plays when we’re in front.”

It was a third blank in four for Turner’s men, who have scored 30 goals in their past 10 home games in all competitions but only three in their six away games.

Turner claimed: “It’s definitely something that we have got to try and work on. We’ve generally been scoring plenty at home but we’ve got to address our away problems because we have a lot more away games to come than home ones.”

He added: “It doesn’t help that we’re struggling with our forward options at the moment which is something I am desperately trying to improve.”

Top-scorer Dean Grant is out of the country on work duty, coaching with Gillingham’s academy, while Luke Harvey is suffering from a niggling back/hamstring problem and Liam King, who would have been in the side at present but left for Hythe last month in search of regular football.

Turner admitted: “Our biggest issue is that we are without those three – the three players I’d planned on having. I am trying to bolster the area and ideally I’d like a couple in.”