DETERMINED Aldershot Town boss Danny Searle has insisted there is “no panic” as his side look to embark on a run of wins to take them out of the National League drop zone.

Searle was left utterly flabbergasted as he watched his wasteful charges spurn an astonishing 20 chances in a 2-1 defeat at Chesterfield on Saturday.

And he responded late on Thursday by securing the services of former Barnet frontman Mohammed Bettamer on a free transfer until the end of the season.

Freshening up his options up front has been a priority for Searle, who could only look on in disbelief at the Proact Stadium as his goal-shy Shots lost for the eighth time in 14 games.

“Yes, it’s 14 games and we’re getting into October now but all I can assure people is that we are not panicking in our dressing room,” he said.

“I’m still trying to get my head around Saturday. I’ve watched a lot of live games this year and I don’t think I’ve seen a team dominate, especially the second half the way we were, as much as we have and not get anything out of the game.

“We had two or three chances at 1-0 and in the second half we had the penalty, then we had a one-on-one before they scored their second goal. They are game-changing moments. We simply have to score goals.

“The lads are fine, they are in good spirits and they know we are on the cusp of putting together a run that can get us up the league. The confidence is still quite high.”

Aldershot’s failure to convert from 12 yards again proved costly, with Harrison Panayiotou the latest to try his hand from the penalty spot, but upbeat Searle was confident that wasn’t a dressing room-wide anxiety issue when it came to spot kicks.

“Probably if you ask the players that have missed the penalties, then may be, but I’ve got a queue of people outside my door who want to take them, so from a confidence perspective it’s not like people are shying away,” he said.

“I had two lads in the office today saying ‘I want to take a penalty’ and that’s all you can ask for is for people to step up and at the end of the day, probably not three in a row necessarily, some of the best players in the world miss penalties.”

On the need for more firepower up front, Searle said: “We created 20 chances on Saturday. If we had only created three and scored a goal the ratio is quite high. The fact that we created 20 and only scored one, that shows where we are lacking at the moment and we can’t hide behind that.

“There’s no excuses to be made, the facts are the facts. If we create that many chances I expect a goal return from that.

“The comments in the dressing room from the players afterwards was ‘we have to be more ruthless in front of goal’.

“At some point something has to give and if it means we have got to look at different personnel in different positions then that’s what we’ll do.”

Bettamer is expected to go straight into the Shots squad for tomorrow’s long trip to the north-west to face Chorley.