Fleetwood Town will be a force when scorers find their shooting boots says Joey Barton

Town are yet to get into a winning habit this season – two victories in seven league games – and went down 1-0 at Accrington Stanley on Tuesday despite dominating much of the contest.

With early-season goalgrabber Harvey Saunders on the bench, head coach Barton put faith in his proven scorers only to find Stanley’s teenage keeper Toby Savin in inspired form.

Ched Evans, Paddy Madden and Josh Morris shared 33 league goals last season but have scored only one between them so far in this campaign.

Barton said: “Unless you win games confidence doesn’t grow, so we have to snap out of it, knuckle down and get back to working hard on the training ground. The results will then come.

“We aren’t playing at our best. You look at the number of corners and set-plays we had and they were not at the required standard we usually set for ourselves as a group.

“We are waiting for our tried and tested goalscorers – your Madden, your Evans and your Morris – to start weighing in at some point. I’m sure they’ll start to fill the boots and, when they do, we will be a real force in the division.

“It’s disappointing and as bad as it has been for me as a coach in that we’ve always started the season well.

“But it’s a relatively new group and, with the other bodies we’ve got to come in, it excites me.

“If we play as well on Saturday against Gillingham, and are as dominant as we were in the first period and for shades of the second period, then you’ll win more games than you lose.

“We should never have lost and Accrington will be asking themselves how they won that game.”