Kem Izzet insists Needham Market must learn quickly from Saturday’s 5-0 defeat at Hampton and Richmond Borough, if they are to avoid relegation at the end of the season.

The Marketmen suffered their heaviest loss since September at the weekend as the Ryman League Premier Division title-chasers ran out comfortable winners at the Beveree Stadium.

Needham (20th) sit one place and six points above the relegation zone with just 11 games to go, and Izzet has called for an immediate response when the Marketmen host seventh place Kingstonian this Saturday (3pm).

“Everyone is disappointed at the moment and rightly so,” said the Needham captain following Saturday’s defeat at Hampton. “You want to come to these places and give a good account of yourselves.

“We failed to do that and we let a few people down, managers, coaches, fans, ourselves and we’ve got to learn from it very quickly.

“The belief is there; it has to be otherwise what are we doing it for?

“We’ve got to get back onto the training pitch, start grafting and being harder to beat.”

After going on a run of eight games unbeaten in all competitions towards the back end of last year, the Marketmen then lost six of their next seven games to slip back down towards the bottom four.

Mark Morsley’s side had drawn their last three outings heading into last weekend’s trip to the Beavers, a run which saw them concede just one goal, but found themselves 2-0 behind inside the opening 10 minutes.

Needham elected for a 4-2-3-1 formation to take on the title chasers on Saturday, a switch from the 4-3-3 and 4-4-2 systems which had been used in the 1-1 home draw against Metropolitan Police.

“The theory behind it is at home we can’t pass the ball because of how bad the pitch is so we have to go a lot more direct,” Izzet explained.

“We had a look at the pitch on Saturday and it’s a passable pitch so we thought we could get the ball down and move it through the areas.

“But we just didn’t have the ball enough in the first-half.”