The Chester City boss watched his team fall to a 5-2 first round home defeat last night against League One club, Leeds United.

City trailed 5-1 at the break in a match televised live, but hit back with a much-improved second half performance.

Davies said: "We actually matched them at times with our passing, our endeavour and with our workrate, but one punt down field after three minutes and we end up 1-0 down.

"We try to work hard during the week on formations, but at the end of the day, if we can't deal with one long punt down the middle then we're going to have problems.

"I thought we got done for every little thing against Leeds. Their striker Jermaine Beckford had four chances in the first half and scored three.

"I know we won't meet another player with the ability of Beckford in our league, but it was a good lesson for us because every time we did make a mistake we got punished for it and long term it is a good lesson for our players if they switch off slightly.

"I was right behind Beckford when he chipped John Danby – it was the only thing he had on and it was a class act. At times you've just got to hold your hands up and say that was a good goal.

"But we're hurting ourselves with the mistakes that we're making and we're starting our games on the backfoot."

Davies made two changes at the interval and decided to change his side's formation in a bid to restrict Leeds's options.

Ryan Lowe accounted for City's two goals thanks to a first half strike and a second half penalty.

Davies said: "It just wasn't working in the first half – (Paul) Butler gives us a lot of things with his experience and organisation, and his power in the air and his size, but he'll probably admit that he struggled slightly with the pace and they got behind us a little too often.

"I also knew that the lad who came on to replace Beckford had the same attributes in terms of pace so I had to do something about that and I thought Shaun Kelly came on and did really well.

"Richie Partridge was in and out of the game and it was a game that was passing him by a touch, so I decided to make it a bit more solid with another central midfielder in Jay Harris and we won the second half 1-0.

"We changed the formation to five across the middle which in a way was how I wanted to play in the first half, but the main theme of my half-time talk was to keep our discipline because I knew we were going to get more and more tired and they had the majority of the ball.

"Damien Mozika played well, but he was also our best player in Saturday's match at Dagenham and Redbridge. He's a really good player and we're fortunate to have him, but if he keeps putting in performances like that then we won't have him for much longer.

"I'd like to think we can maintain his form and carry on with the attacking play that we showed in the second half against Leeds, and cancel out our defensive errors so that we can kick-start our season."

Ask Davies

If you have a question for Chester City's Simon Davies email it to digitalnews@nwn.co.uk and we'll ask as many as we can during our next weekly video interview with the Chester boss.