Manager Ian Evatt has challenged Barrow AFC to become more ruthless in the final third, as they look to get back on track against promotion-chasing Leyton Orient tonight.

The Bluebirds have a quick chance to make amends for last Saturday’s 3-1 defeat at Barnet, where Evatt felt they let themselves down in both penalty areas.

However, he could put down their sloppy defensive showing as uncharacteristic, given how many times they had previously shut opponents out in the last three months.

It is at the other end where they have been struggling since the turn of the year, however, with Kyle Jameson’s late consolation goal just the third time they’ve found the net in the eight matches they’ve played in 2019.

Evatt said: “I think we should be doing better. I genuinely think we should be doing better with the team we’ve got.

“I see the other teams in the league and we’ve beaten most of the teams in the top six.

“We went to Barnet, as an away team by the way, and more or less controlled the ball for 90 minutes, but we have to be more ruthless in both boxes.

“We’ve kept ten out of 14 clean sheets or so, we’ve been great in terms of that. It wasn’t like that on Saturday, but we have to start putting teams to the sword and it’s not through a lack of creating chances or opportunities or situations.

“It’s just our final decision isn’t good enough at the moment.”

Barrow are up against an Orient side who are third in the National League and in with the possibility of going top of the table should they win their two games in hand on leaders Wrexham.

They won 2-1 at Havant & Waterlooville last weekend, but as Evatt pointed out, AFC have frequently given a great account of themselves against the leading teams in the division.

They will, however, still be without suspended duo Jason Taylor and Sam Hird, while defenders Josh Granite, Brian Wilson and Rhys Norrington-Davies remain on the injured list.

Evatt said: “It’s just numbers, really, we’re a bit short on defenders with Sam and Jason still being out, so we’ll just have to see how everyone is. Jack Barthram got a bit of a concussion in the first half so we’ll have to monitor that and then we’ll go from there.

“The best part about is that we’ve got another game, a difficult game against Leyton Orient, but a game to get them firing again hopefully we can take our chances.

“It’s easy to play at 3-0 down – you’ve got nothing to lose and the home team have won the game, so they’ve got to do that from minute one.”