The Bath City game was never going to be easy, and the point that Sutton United took from it was by no means a disaster.

The run of form in January was fantastic, but had to come to an end at some point, and with fixtures piling up United must dig deep to keep themselves in the play-offs.

It was perhaps unfortunate timing that the Bath game came after a new manager had recently been appointed for the Romans.

That seemed to do the trick for them as they raised their game from previous awful form and battled well to earn their point, despite the fact they seemed unable to defend set pieces.

There were positives for Paul Doswell’s men, with Craig Eastmond dominating the midfield again and Kevin Amankwaah solid on return from injury.

Creativity was a slight problem compared to recent weeks, although this was somewhat expected with the absence of Craig McAllister and Tom Bolarinwa from the starting line-up.

Bolarinwa returning to the side on Tuesday night at Basingstoke could be the crucial factor against a side that have shown signs of improvement after a terrible start to the season.

Basingstoke were beaten 2-1 by in-form Margate at the weekend, but missed a penalty in stoppage time and could count themselves unlucky to leave Kent with no points to show for their efforts.

On what is likely to be a heavy pitch, United can expect another tough game, hopefully one they can negotiate without further injury problems and with a win to put pressure on Maidstone and Ebbsfleet.