TONY Gore has called for his Dudley Sports players to ‘work harder’ if they intend to turn their recent run of bad form around.

After their winless streak was extended to four games after Saturday’s 6-0 drubbing by Brocton in the FA Vase, Sports will now head to Wednesfield as they return to league action this weekend.

Boss Gore said: “It’s a tough league this year, there’s a lot of money flying around and a lot of good sides.

“We’re just having one of those seasons. Saturday we were second best in all departments and were deservedly beaten. I could have no complaints with the score line.

“Getting anything from a game when you go in 3-0 down against a team a level above was always going to be a tough task, but we can now just concentrate on the league.

“We just have to work harder and give it our best. The players also have to take a bit of responsibility themselves for the recent results; the coaches can only do so much.

“We haven’t prepared the team any differently for the last few weeks as we did at the start of the season, but I don’t think the players have worked hard enough the last few games.

“They were really putting the effort in at the start of the season and we had run of good results and maybe they thought all they had to do was show up, but that’s not the case in this league.

“Players can have all the ability, but if they don’t work hard as a team then the results won’t come.”

Gore has his work cut out to rebuild the side after losing a number of players this week, including Zaqib Hussain leaving for Malvern Town and Matt Hearsay to AFC Wulfrunians.

The manager added: “They are going to have to be replaced, but it’s just frustrating that we get a good squad together in pre-season, get them settled and looking forward to the season for them to get pinched.

“These players in particular have been round quite a bit, so it’s not like they have just come on the radar this season. Teams could have taken them pre-season, but no, they wait until after the season starts.

“But that’s the nature of the beast.

“We get them in when they’re young, train them up and turn them into men, just for teams in the higher leagues to just snatch them from us and take advantage of our good work.

“It has happened here a lot over the years. It’s just really frustrating and makes you wonder if it’s all worth it at times.

“But we’ll keep going and hopefully get a couple of new signings in this week in time for the Wednesfield game.”