St Albans City slumped to the bottom of National League South but manager David Noble was still seeing the positives - as well as crossing his fingers for a bit of luck.

Saints drew 0-0 at home to Weston-super-Mare which, coupled with a win for Weymouth, sent them to the basement with just two points from the opening eight games of the year.

This was far better though according to the boss.

Noble said: "If you've been watching our games, it is going to take a bit of luck for a ball to drop to us, one of those through balls to just get through, a cross to drop for us or the old cliche, we need one to go in off a backside.

"Everything is there bar the finer details.

"We played a team that has won five in a row, they are riding high from confidence.

"We [had] one point from seven and confidence is right at the other end of the scale.

"If anyone watched that game, I don't think they would have been able to tell which team was which.

"It's not been the performances that have been the problem, it is the finer details in both boxes that have cost us in most of the games.

"This was again a pretty good performance, just missing that final touch.

"First half we had a few chances, sort of half chances from crosses, second half Gio [Rasulo] had one blocked from a really good bit of play."

And Noble is now looking forward to the upcoming matches, although next up is a trip to Needham Market of National League North in the FA Cup second qualifying round.

They head to Suffolk with players coming back from injury and a tweak to tactics, which Noble believes made a difference.

"We played with a slightly different structure and it was our first clean sheet which was positive," he said.

"How it is going for us at the minute, and we haven't had the rub of the green, but it is going to be difficult to win a match, everything needs to be perfect at the minute.

"We're not getting that ball drop to us, we're not getting that clear-cut opportunity, we're having to fight for every thing we get.

"It was better than Tonbridge [a 2-0 loss in midweek] and we were a lot better going forward. Whether the slight change of shape was something to do with that, I think it was.

"We've got [Tafari Moore] back as well, hopefully we'll have another couple back for Saturday. It's something to build on."