Chorley have a three-game season now declares Preece

The Magpies have three games to play after a difficult period, which saw a controversial home defeat to King’s Lynn, a Good Friday goalless draw at Chester and a home defeat on Monday to Scarborough Athletic.

Chorley led 2-1 at half-time on Easter Monday before surrendering meekly after the break to lose 3-2.

On Saturday, they must get back on track at Leamington, followed by a home clash with Peterborough Sports and a final-day trip to Gloucester City.

Preece is still fuming about the officials’ failure to spot a ‘ghost goal’ in the game against King’s Lynn a fortnight ago.

Billy Whitehouse appeared to have scored a winner for Chorley, only for the visitors to go straight to the other end and score themselves to win the game 1-0.

He said: “We crumbled in the second half (against Scarborough) which isn’t like us.

"But you’ve got to look at how important those three points against King’s Lynn were in momentum, going into the next game at Chester and this game today.

"We still haven’t had the decency of anyone come forward to talk about it.

"What we do know now is that we need to win every game – if we win every game I still think we’ll get in the play-offs.

"So it’s simplified things for us.”

Preece knows his men will have to perform better than they did on Monday and must start to address the problem that has dogged them all season.

"We created lots of opportunities but we didn’t take them,” said the Magpies boss.

"And if one thing can be levelled at us maybe over the season it is that when we’ve got teams under the cosh, we haven’t put them away.

"But give massive credit to Scarborough. They’ve been on a poor run and it’s difficult when you’re on those runs to pull yourself out of it. But, second half, they did. They asked questions of us and we didn’t stand up to it.