HEREFORD manager Russell Slade said that defensive lapses cost his side as the Bulls suffered a third away defeat of the season.

Guiseley striker Aaron Martin capitalised on a Jordan Cullinane-Liburd error to put his side ahead after just 10 minutes.

As the Bulls tried to find a late leveller Jared Hodgkiss was beaten by Andrai Johnson, who pulled it back for Martin’s second.

With the points settled Cullinane-Liburd was judged to have fouled Johnson inside the box, which Martin dispatched.

The defeat meant the Bulls slipped to 16th, six points off the top seven with two games in hand.

“Overall you’ve got to be disappointed as I asked them afterwards in terms of scoring themselves out of 10 and there wasn’t many scored themselves over a five or six to be honest,” said Slade.

“The three goals we conceded were very disappointing today as we’ve actually had for the away team a fair amount of the ball, but we were toothless in terms of final third play and at the back we made crucial mistakes which proved costly.

“They (Guiseley) are a big, physical team and I think we struggled against that at times today for sure. I said at half-time in terms of those individual battles we had to be winning more to turn the game.

“At 1-0 that was still possible until they got the second goal, which proved crucial. There’s a lot to do, there’s a lot of work to be done.

“We’ve got to get to that standard and keep repeating it and efficient in everything we do. That’s a real concentration, that’s a focus and a re-focus on getting the team right, you can’t have any lapses.

“We’ve had a couple of lapses today and that has completely battered us.”

Slade admits that he is still learning about his new Bulls side but says they need to improve ‘very quickly’

He added: “Do I know my best team at the minute? Probably not, I’m learning about them and I’ve got to learn about them very quickly.

“At the same time if I feel they’re not going to get to the level required to push us up the table then we need to look at the recruiting side a lot closer than we are right now.

 “We will improve there is no doubt about that, but we’ve got to do that very quickly. There has got to be a greater understanding of what’s required from each individual and also collectively.

“They’ve got a striker who has scored 14 goals which is a tremendous return and when you’ve got that and games are tight, it was 1-0 for 82 minutes.

“So it was a tight game, but when you’ve got a striker on the pitch who can just do that at the minute and just finish a game off or turn a game on its head it makes a huge difference.

“We need that and we need one or two stepping up to the plate. There are players capable of better performances than what I’ve seen today, from what I’ve seen in training and on the clips.”