Davies admitted he had no excuses for Chester's performance in their 2-0 home defeat against Lincoln City who celebrated their first away win of the campaign.

The loss brought City's five-game unbeaten run to an end.

Davies said: "It was nothing to do with luck – we just never got started and never got out of the blocks.

"We felt we had a really good chance to extend our run, but now the unbeaten run is out of the way.

"I felt we were capable of winning our match against Lincoln, but we didn't do ourselves justice at all and we played well below par.

"I was surprised we didn't cause more problems in attack because our strikers have been doing ever so well.

"But it was one of those games where in the past we may have had one or two players just off key and having a bad day at the office.

"Normally other players dig those players out, but there were too many who didn't approach the Lincoln game in the manner that I would have expected of them.

"Players just can't turn it on and off like that and, if we don't start off right we'll always find it difficult to get a foothold in a game."

Lincoln boss, Peter Jackson, a former Chester captain, received a warm reception from the Blues fans before kick-off after recovering from throat cancer.

Meanwhile, Davies believed that Lincoln's first goal seemed to sum up Chester's day.

He added: "Everybody looked as if somebody else should be doing the job instead of grabbing a chance by the scruff of the neck and dictating play for themselves.

"That seemed to be the order of the day. There was one instance when Ryan (Lowe) was through on goal and decided to square the ball to Kevin (Ellison) and it didn't quite come off, when I thought if he'd done things on his own it could have been different.

"But there were other little things all over the park, and when you put them all together it was a disappointing afternoon for us.

"It was the simple things that we didn't do well against Lincoln.

"We have been playing well over the past weeks, but I want to draw a line under that now.

"I've told the lads that we're now in the middle of the league table and now they've got to decide what sort of a season they want.

"If they want a similar season to last season and be looking over their shoulder all the time, or achieve something, because I believe we have quality to do something.

"I'll keep working for them, and so will Wayne (Allison) and the other coaching staff, but we can't go out there for them."

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.