DORCHESTER Town head to promotion-chasing Redditch United tonight (7.45pm) with boss Graham Kemp admitting his job is “on the line”.

Speaking after the Magpies slumped to a 4-3 defeat by Paulton Rovers on Saturday, the county town chief said his players’ Avenue futures were at risk as well.

Kemp described Dorchester’s second-half performance against the Somerset outfit as “unacceptable”, though he acknowledged he had to take responsibility for the loss.

In a frank assessment of the situation, he said: “The reality is that my job and the players’ jobs are on the line at the moment.”

He then went on to add: “If we didn’t know it before we know it now, we’re in a relegation battle, and that’s not what I was brought here to do.

“If I was the chairman, I’d want a meeting with the manager after the way the last 10 games have gone.”

Commenting on Saturday’s display, and reflecting on the last few months, Kemp claimed some fundamental attributes were missing from his squad.

He continued: “To be two goals to the good entering the last 10 minutes and concede three is not acceptable.

“We worked hard to get ourselves 3-1 in front, but we didn’t get anywhere near doing the basics right in the last quarter of an hour.

“The players have held their hands up for the goals, but it was the 90th minute, it’s not the first minute where you can get caught cold.

“From the players to me it’s not acceptable, and from me to the fans and committee it’s not acceptable.

“When you’re 2-0 and 3-1 up you’ve got to dig in and show spirit, and we don’t.

“You don’t let in the amount of goals we have in the last 10 weeks if you’ve got desire, guts and personal pride.

“We seem to lack that and I don’t know what I’ve got to say to the players to get it across.

“The quality we showed going forward was good, you just need to find people with heart, that’s what we lacked.

“We showed quality, but do we have players that will roll their sleeves up and take a kick in the face, a cut head or a cut eye to preserve the three points? I don’t think we’ve got those at the moment.”

He added: “We’ve worked hard to get a bit of team spirit together, but a team that plays together doesn’t throw away leads like we have been.

“Quite rightly now there is a bit of a rift between the lads that are scoring the goals and those that are letting them in.”

Casting an eye over tonight’s encounter at Bromsgrove Road against a side just three points off top spot, Kemp said his players must get Saturday’s disappointment out of their systems as quickly as possible.

“I think we do play well against the better sides, but whether it has come too close to the Paulton game, I don’t know,” he said.

“The lads are demoralised and will be low on confidence, but we’ve got to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves down.

“If we don’t it will be another 5-0 or 6-0 defeat and we’ll be licking our wounds on the way home.”

New signing Connor Doe is set to go straight into the squad for tonight’s clash after joining on non-contract terms from Bournemouth Poppies at the weekend.

However, Jake Smeeton and Nick Crittenden remain sidelined through injury, though the latter should be back for Saturday’s game away to Slough Town.