DON'T blame the manager – the players are at fault for Barrow AFC's recent slump.

Forward Harry Panayiotou is not shying away from taking his share of the blame for the Bluebirds results of late, and knows only the team themselves can put things right.

The 23-year-old former Leicester City man started at Plainmoor on Saturday as Barrow fell to a 3-1 defeat against previously-bottom-of-the-table Torquay United.

The result followed a dismal FA Trophy exit against Brackley Town three weeks ago.

The team are without a win since beating Woking 2-1 on December 23, and have not triumphed at Holker Street since October, form which has fans worried about the precarious nature of their National League status.

Panayiotou points to the Brackley games – the initial 0-0 draw followed by the 2-0 home loss – as starting the recent rot, having been happy with the draws over Christmas and the New Year against Wrexham (twice) and Tranmere Rovers.

But he is not making excuses, and knows the players, not manager Ady Pennock and his staff, are the ones responsible and the ones who must react.

“The Christmas break was good; the Woking game and onwards was good. But what killed us was the Brackley game,” Panayiotou said.

“We got a great result against Tranmere, great results against Wrexham, at Woking, but then we go to the Brackley game and we performed badly in both games. Then we performed badly again on Saturday.

“It's not down to the manager, because the gaffer and Holty (player/coach Grant Holt) have done everything right for us. It's the players, we've been sloppy and we need to get back to how we were against Tranmere and Wrexham.”

He added: “We've got 16 games left. That's a lot of games to play, and as long as we can get a win in there early, it will give us the team spirit that we're back, because we know we can do it.

“It's not being lazy, it's just believing in ourselves more, not feeling sorry for ourselves in the position we are. There's no-one else to blame for it but ourselves – so we need to stop feeling sorry for ourselves and start putting it in like we do in training, because training is great, everyone is training well, training is sharp and fast. It's good right now.

“We need to take those training sessions into the games, stop feeling sorry for ourselves because of we are, because we have nobody to blame but ourselves.”

Barrow went to Torquay having been without a game for two-and-a-half weeks due to back-to-back postponements.

But Panayiotou is not using that as a reason for results against teams AFC should be expected to beat.

“The break didn't help us, but we can't use that as an excuse,” said the St Kitts and Nevis international.

“The last three games, Brackley are in a division below and Torquay are bottom of the league, so we only have ourselves to blame.

“We all trust the gaffer and Holty; they will get us back into shape. We just need to forget about those results now, think about the next game and go from there.”