A large attendance of 3,555 watched Hereford’s 3-0 defeat against King’s Lynn Town, the third consecutive home defeat in which the Bulls have failed to score.

The defeat was made worse for the home fans as former Bulls boss Paul Caddis was making his first return to Edgar Street as King’s Lynn manager.

Following the defeat Downes apologised to the supporters and vowed to ‘put it right’.

He said: “It sounds hollow, but it is sincere, I want to apologise to the supporters. I know how important it was today for numerous people.

“We're in a sticky patch at home and we've got to make sure that we fight, compete, and come through this.

“We've got to get back to our hard work, resilience and making it hard for our opposition. I’m determined to put this right, and I know I will.

“That's three games, three clean sheets against us at home, that’s something that we've got to put right.”

When questioned if there would be less pressure playing away at Chorley this coming Saturday? Downes replied: “I don't want to go down that route where we’re afraid to play it home. This is our home. I want us to be comfortable and confident at our home. I'll deal with that.

“I want us to be good at home and comfortable at home, and we will be.”

King’s Lynn raced into an early two-goal lead at Edgar Street thanks to a Kwame Thomas brace inside 16 minutes.

The first came from the penalty spot, before just three minutes later the striker headed home a second.

Downes blamed his side for ‘giving’ their opposition both goals and said afterwards the Bulls lacked a clinical edge up front.

“We’ve give them two goals,” added Downes.

“It's some poor play, whether it's a penalty or not, we’ve given the referee a decision to make. “Then we don't deal with a long ball (for the second goal), it’s a good cross and a good header, but we should deal with it before it gets down into our final third.

After 14 minutes, we’re 2-0 down. We broke play up, got down into their final third and then we didn't really have that threat.

“We dominated a lot of parts of the game today, but didn't have that cutting edge and that clinical-ness.

“When you're 2-0 down, then you've got to have quality. You got to have good moments. You got to have the ability to break a team down because at 2-0 they're not going to come out.

“That's our own fault, our own undoing. We have to make sure that we're not giving the opposition a head start in games. It’s unlike us.

“We dominated large parts of that game without having a clinical edge. That was the frustrating thing for me. There were some good moments out there without a finished product, without an end product.”