Manager Hakan Hayrettin says the lack of National League level experience within his Braintree Town squad is hampering their attempts to safeguard their place in non-league football’s top flight this season.

While he backs the quality of the players at his disposal, the Iron boss has been frustrated by mistakes that have been made in games since he took the helm in October.

They have cost the side valuable points in their bid to avoid relegation and the manner they conceded sloppy goals in the 4-0 defeat by Ebbsfleet United was a prime example.

Hayrettin sees the problem as being a shortage of players within the squad who have previous experience at National League level who may have the guile to deal with testing situations a bit more effectively.

But he knows that type of player is hard to come by on slender resources like Braintree have and said he was trying to do the best he could with what he had available.

He said: “It’s frustrating because, since we came in, we’ve trebled the points (from what the team had before) from fewer games.

“The squad has never had any experience at National League level and I’ve just tried to add in players with higher-level experience or who have the potential to be good players, like Callum Morton, who I’m trying desperately to keep here until the end of the season.

“We just have to add to it and do what we can do.

“It’s hard because you know how that little bit of experience could have helped us in games.

“I look at teams like Ebbsfleet and there are players throughout their side who have played at this level for a long time.

“We have players with the potential but we don’t have the consistency at the moment.

“But we just have to keep fighting.

“We have to find a way to get them doing that.

“I spoke openly with the players after the game against Ebbsfleet.

“I was nice and calm, but I said we can’t be a heartbeat, we can’t be up and down like that.

“All you can do is work on things.

“We have what we have and we just have to try and improve it.”

Hayrettin knows the situation is looking bleak, but he is far from ready to throw in the towel and knows that it will only take a couple of results for things to look a lot rosier.

He added: “We’re eight points short of being in the safety part of the table and that’s less than three games.

“It can turn around so quickly.

“It’s two or three games and that’s the belief that I’ve got.”