St Albans City boss David Howell is calling on his players to pull together after the worst start to a season on the road in more than 20 years.

City’s away record of one win, a draw and six defeats is their worst opening to a campaign since 1988 and one point in their last six away from Clarence Park is the poorest run of results, within the same season, in a decade.

Saints fans had hoped they could upset the odds on Saturday and Oxford City would be distracted ahead of their FA Cup first round tie with Redbridge this weekend but St Albans’ poor run continued with a 3-1 loss.

Howell made five changes on Saturday, with James Gray making his debut at centre half, but their slump continued as it became one win in ten matches in all competitions.

Speaking at the weekend, Howell said: “I thought James Gray on his debut showed what has been missing and what we need as a side through his commitment and the way he applied himself.

“But that needs to become infectious and spread to the rest of the players so we work together as a unit rather than one or two individuals.

“That wasn’t going to be enough to get us back into the game, especially when we gave away three sloppy goals.”

There was not a lot separating the sides early on in the contest and St Albans were actually on the front foot when Nick Chrysanthou was caught in possession and Oxford’s Lee Steele opened the scoring.

The home side, who went level on points with the league leaders after the win, were causing problems from set plays and poor defensive organisation allowed Andy Ballard to make it 2-0.

A long throw led to Steele’s second and Oxford’s third with just over quarter of an hour left on the clock.

Sean Shields grabbed a deflected consolation strike with three minutes remaining for the Saints and sparked a frantic end to what was a below-par performance. Oxford’s win was never in doubt though.

Howell has since stressed the need to secure an experienced spine to his team.

He said: “We have to try to fill the heart and the nucleus of the side with experienced players to get us out of this situation. It isn’t going to be those fair weather players.

“To a man, we have to work and we have to battle to get ourselves out of this situation and then the rest will follow and players can start to express themselves.

“At the moment when we try to express ourselves, we are getting punished.”

St Albans remain in mid-table despite their recent run and are looking for a change in fortunes when they face basement-boys Hemel Hempstead Town in the Red Insure Cup tonight.

Howell was planning to make more changes for the match, saying: “Rob Haworth hopefully can be involved on Tuesday, and so can Ryan Moran.

“So it will be an opportunity for those lads to get some minutes and be in contention for the weekend.

“Bryan Hall is another one who needs more minutes and will play on Tuesday.

“If he gets 90 minutes midweek then he will be in contention for Saturday.

“We need strikers who can put the ball in the back of the net.”

The Harpenden Construction Limited player of the month for October is Jerome Walker.

The award will be presented by Saints supporter Tom Norman prior to this Saturday’s game against Evesham United.