A good cup run may have cured their struggling league form but St Albans City did not get it - as they were dumped out of the FA Trophy at home by Northern Premier League Basford United.

McKeal Abdullah put the Nottingham side in front seven minutes into the second half and they doubled that lead a further 13 minutes later by a 30-yard strike from Jordan Hallam.

Matt Lench gave Saints hope with a 71st-minute effort from the edge of the box but they were unable to find an equaliser and lost 2-1.

They had lost to Gorleston in the FA Cup, step four opposition, and manager David Noble was very decisive in his reasoning for the defeat against the step three side - "we weren't good enough".

He said: "You're playing a team from the level below and we're coming off a quite a good spell of performances, especially last week.

"But to come out of the blocks as we did for the first 60-65 minutes, is unacceptable.

"We prepared a team for how Basford are going to play and we had a game plan for the first 15 minutes where we were going to show a bit of passion and a bit of a aggression and a bit of enthusiasm and we lacked that.

"Ultimately we got what we deserved.

"You can start performing when you go behind. We had this earlier in the season but I thought we'd gone past that.

"We'd been starting games at a higher tempo recently and dominating from the first whistle.

"That was nowhere near it.

"I can understand making mistakes with the football, you can make technical errors, but the other side wasn't there - the willingness to win was missing.

"When the time is like this, that's when you need people to step up and give 100 per cent, in every single thing they do.

"Whether that is on the pitch or in training, whatever it is, we need people who are totally focused on where we want to go and to get us out of this predicament."

They had gone into the game with another reshuffled defensive line and missing skipper Joe Partington.

That shouldn't be used as an excuse though according to the boss.

He said: "It's about performing when you have the opportunity and that is not just for the back four or five, it's everybody on the pitch.

"Joe's been struggling with a quad injury and he's not been doing himself justice.

"We want to get him right and of course, we missed his leadership, but there are 11 people out there, supposedly 11 men.

"Some people need to step up and start showing that for the club."