Steve King slammed Macclesfield’s ‘unacceptable’ performance after they failed to see off bottom club Nuneaton.

Lacklustre Macc had the better of a scrappy affair but after failing to capitalise on the precious few openings they created, they were thankful for a good save from Lance Cronin as Nuneaton broke late on.

"It’s two points dropped, I’m very disappointed," said the manager (pictured right) after their goalless draw. "I just feel that performance is not acceptable. That was a game that we should have won but too many players had an off-day.

"There were too many average performances and you can’t win any football match like that.

" I’m not being disrespectful to Nuneaton because they’ve come here and given everything but they had the worst away record in the division and conceded the most goals away from home, so that for me is a definite three-pointer and it’s two points dropped. We’re only two points off the top six but this was a game where we could have got into the top six and settle in there nicely going into the Christmas period.

"That was the carrot for us so to not win was bitterly disappointing."

Macc were less than sparkling against the strugglers, who had worked hard all week on their defending after a 6-1 drubbing at the hands of Wrexham the week before.

But King wasn’t surprised that opposite Kevin Wilkin had his troops well-drilled in defence, albeit with little attacking threat posed.

"Games against teams at the bottom are always battles and you’ve got to win those battles to earn the right to play," continued King.

"They battled hard, they fought hard and they had a game plan. When we played them last time they’d been beaten 6-1 in the previous game and I know Kevin well and I knew he was going to have them tighter and it proved that way.

"If we’d taken those chances we’d have been out of sight but it is what it is, we have to regroup for Tuesday and we’re feeling disappointed because we’d drawn at Forest Green and beaten Hyde and if we’d won today we’d have been in the top six, exactly where we want to be, in and around it."