PORTLAND United will strip their tactics “back to basics” and look for small areas of improvement on their travels to Fareham Town tomorrow (3pm).

Blues’ boss Kyle Critchell’s message comes after the islanders have gone five matches without victory since thrashing Lymington Town 6-0 in mid-January.

Portland have played three of the top five in that timeframe, emerging with 1-1 draws against Hamble and Christchurch on their way to slipping from fifth to ninth.

And Critchell conceded Portland will resort to a simpler gameplan as the Blues look to rekindle the form that elevated them into the play-offs.

Addressing Portland’s recent results, he told Echosport: “I think that comes down to, in my opinion, playing three or the top-five sides.

READ MORE: Portland United 0-2 AFC Stoneham - report

"I think Baffins will end up in the top five.

“We played Portchester and Stoneham, so we’ve had a difficult run. Unfortunately, we’ve lost a few players at times as well.

“We’ve definitely got to look at that first and foremost to make sure our discipline is better, but there’s no worries with regards to confidence.

“We just need to strip it back to the basics, go back to what we were doing well and what our template was last season, so back to those simple areas of improvements.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to pick some points up moving forwards.”

Assessing Fareham, who occupy 14th having played only 20 matches so far, Critchell added: “It’s a good opportunity to test ourselves against someone in that second part of the league.

“You’ve got the top four and then the other section. I think Fareham are probably in a false position, but it’s an opportunity to collect three points.

“We know the strengths and weaknesses they have. They do struggle to get home games on, it does flood.

“They’re behind in games but their recent result against Shaftesbury (2-1 win) shows the quality they do have.

“For us, there’s no feeling sorry for ourselves, even though we haven’t won in the last five matches. We’ll go with absolute positivity in our gameplan.”

George Stuttle and Shaun Bessant are suspended, but Jack Delves and skipper Josh Williams return.