BRAINTREE Town manager Jamie Day was pleased with the performance of his team against Forest Green Rovers but admits they must start turning improving displays into points.

It has been a tough start to the season for Day and his team and their 1-0 defeat by second-placed Rovers means they are still sitting in the Vanarama National League's relegation zone.

Keanu Marsh-Brown's first-half strike proved to be the difference between the two sides at the Ironmongery Direct Stadium.

Despite a third home loss in a row, Day feels performances have been improving, though, and thought his team were unfortunate not to get more reward against a side who are pushing for promotion this year.

Braintree's pressing in the second half created numerous chances, including a penalty that was saved, but Day knows it is the hard currency of league points that is what really matters.

He said: "I thought the performance was good - as it has been for the last three games - but we need to start picking up points and we can't keep just saying that we have done well.

"We need to start picking up points.

"I still feel we're one or two players from where we want to be but I don't think anyone can argue with the performances over the last three games.

"We have worked our socks off, we have created chances and we have looked a lot better, but at the end of the day it comes down to getting points and that's what we need to look at.

"The progression is turning those performances into getting wins and draws."

Day was pleased that his players carried out the game plan he had set out for them.

He added: "In the first half, we looked to frustrate and we wanted to be hard to break down.

"You can't come out against these teams as they will just pick you off.

"You'll lose three or four nil and everyone will be moaning, so we had to go into it in the first 15 to 20 minutes and be hard to beat and difficult to break down.

"We did that for the majority of the half and they only scored from about 25 yards.

"That happens but in the second half, we had a plan that we would go after them and close the ball down.

"We had the wind in the second half and we knew we could pin them in.

"That was the game-plan from start to finish.

"It's possible we gave them too much respect in the first half, but when you've lost games like we have then you need to be hard to beat first of all and that's what we tried to do.

"We wanted to get ourselves in the game and I felt we did that and we created a lot of chances.

"They had possession, but I felt they didn't really hurt us until the obviously the scored the goal.

"In the second half, we knew what we wanted to do.

"We had the penalty and had good chances but unfortunately we didn't take them."