The Chester City boss watched his side suffer a 3-1 defeat last night against Carlisle United at the Deva Stadium after conceding two goals in a five-minute spell towards the end of the game.

Kevin Ellison had levelled matters for Chester after Scott Dobie had scored Carlisle's opening goal just two minutes earlier, but Gary Madine and Simon Hackney put the game beyond the Blues towards the end.

Davies said: "I was concerned about the goals that we leaked and we spoke in the changing room afterwards about it.

"To be fair John Danby put his hand up and said he was at fault for a goal or two.

"Hopefully we can address that situation by the time we reach our first league game on August 9.

"Carlisle are a quality team. They just missed out on the Championship last season so we knew it was going to be a good test for us and that proved the case.

"I was quite pleased with our performance and the way we played and passed the ball about against a decent team, and we gave them a run for their money.

"I felt in terms of the way we played and the chances we created it was a little harsh to lose 3-1, but it was a good lesson and we must now learn from that.

"We'll take the positives out of the game and we'll work at the negatives which is the most important thing because we're always going to create chances.

"We're going to make sure that we get the defensive side of things sorted out and once we do that, which we will, it will look quite encouraging.

"I feel as if we're getting there step by step. We're looking a little bit sharper than we were for our first two friendlies against Southport and Vauxhall Motors.

"By the time we face Swansea and Telford I think we'll be ready for the new season."

Praising trialist Damien Mozika for his contribution against the Cumbrian club, Davies added: "I thought Damien played ever so well throughout the game. It was good to see him completing 90 minutes and his fitness isn't a problem.

"He is telling us that he can get stronger than he is now, but he is playing for a contract and he's looking ever so good and gets on well with the lads which is encouraging because he's come from another country and trying to blend in.

"I think we've got players that suit a 4-3-3 formation and it's great to see us going forward, but I still have a slight concern when we have too many players going forward wanting to score goals.

"And defensively we have a few holes when that breaks down.

"We'll address that problem because it's just a case of making a few players a bit more robotic and putting them in the right slots.

"But everything we have been working on is coming off and I told the lads after the match that we could have scored four or five goals against a decent outfit and we must take a lot of positives from that."

Ask Davies

If you have a question for Chester City's Simon Davies email it to digitalnews@nwn.co.uk and we'll ask as many as we can during our next weekly video interview with the Chester boss.