BRIDPORT boss Adam Fricker is unfazed by recent poor results, citing good performances as a cause for optimism ahead of the Bees’ Toolstation Western League Premier Division contest at high-flying Bitton tonight (7.45pm).

Fricker’s men have lost five of their past six games and face a third-placed Ton side that beat the Bees 4-2 in January, despite Bridport dominating for large spells.

Amid the five defeats, Bridport’s displays have been good, with individual errors often scarring solid performances.

Fricker told Echosport: “Over the last five or six weeks performances have been great. We knew we were going to go into a tough run of games – pretty much all the top six teams it turned out we were playing.

“But we’ve performed really well in all of them. Likewise, we have to get over the line. We don’t get opened up as a team but if you gift teams, higher up the league, those opportunities they’re going to take them.

“We need to learn to manage games a bit better and do certain things in certain situations better as well.”

On Bitton, Fricker added: “We’ve both played each other very recently so they’ll know a lot about us, we’ll know a lot about them.

“I would imagine they’ll look to do something about our attacking threat and maybe play a little bit differently.

“It’ll be an interesting game, and one that we’ve got to be confident to go into and see what we can do.”

Veteran striker Mark Salter returns but the game comes too soon for Louis Rutter despite making progress from a knee injury. Richard Hebditch (knee) remains out.