Folkestone boss Neil Cugley will break up his title-winning team if their performances don’t improve this month.

After watching Invicta’s unconvincing FA Cup win over minnows North Greenford on Saturday, Cugley was left to muse the impact of back-to-back league defeats on his players.

And with survival in the Ryman League Premier Division paramount after five seasons in the South, the manager is at something of a crossroads.

Cugley said: "It was great in the last five years that we kept winning but the two losses in a row took a little bit out of us.

"We’ve got to be more professional because we’re not going to win every game.

"It knocked the confidence and it didn’t seem we could play to the standard I want.

"I don’t want to break the team up but if I have to, I will.

"That was the team that won the league last year that we put out (on Saturday) and I didn’t think it performed to the standard we’ve set.

"We lost a couple of games, which is a bit unusual and it maybe knocked the confidence a bit but I’ve got to have people that can withhold that and get on with it.

"If these players can’t take that on the chin, we’ll have to look to replace.

"I don’t think they always like my honesty but I do say what I think. I’m up front on those sort of things.

"I did always say that towards the end of September I’d have a look to see how we’d developed. Some have done better than I thought and some not so well.

"It’s still early days and it’s not a panic thing but I was looking – on Saturday especially after the two defeats – to see how we are.

"To be fair, the two league games (against Needham Market and Burgess Hill) we didn’t deserve to lose either of them but that’s how football is sometimes."

Read the full story in the Folkestone & Hythe Express.