No-one took Macclesfield’s defeat at Cambridge United harder than manager Steve King.

Frustrated by the loss, King freely admits to being a sore loser.

He was quick to condemn a below-par show and the Macc boss is determined that his men will raise their game back to the standards he and the fans have come to expect.

In recent weeks the Silkmen had earned a shot at reaching the third round of the FA Cup by despatching of Swindon and not conceded a goal in three games so Saturday’s drop in performance levels won’t be accepted.

"It affects me badly when we lose," admitted King. "They say you go home and kick the cat, I’ve been through about 10 cats already this season.

"I’m more disappointed that I’m not sitting back and thinking ‘we’ve been played off the park by a team who totally outplayed us and dominated us.’ But they didn’t, we had 54 per cent of the possession, we had at least as many chances and we’ve contributed to our own downfall.

"We didn’t do ourselves justice at all.

"There are no excuses. It was just down to bad judgement and our unbeaten run came to an end because of poor judgements and players switching off."

Although unhappy at a couple of officials’ decisions that went against his side, King refused to lay the blame solely at the feet of the men in charge.

And the players responsible have been told in no uncertain terms as King continued: "For the first goal their player punched it but it should have been cleared before he even got the chance to do that and the second was a set-piece where we just didn’t mark the man.

"We know we need to stand touch-tight next to the man we’re marking and we didn’t do that.

"Then on Sunday I watched John Terry lose his man too easily against Liverpool (his favourite top-flight team), he got away from his marker far too easily and these are £50 thousand-pound a-week players.

"I’d be doing my nut if I was in charge there and my players let them get away so easily."

The manager is insisting that his players must get back to winning ways when they host Ebbsfleet on Saturday, the first of two straight home games, and there’s the small matter of the FA Cup looming on the horizon.

Ahead of watching Barrow and Guiseley’s replay on Tuesday night, which will determine who Macc face on December 1, King said: "There’s a massive carrot at the end for us. If we can reach the third round, the draw can throw anything up so we’ve got to be professional and show our quality again.

"And we’ve got the squad that’s good enough. For example at centre-back we’ve had Tony Diagne and Carl Martin but Kieran Charnock is fit again, Pablo Mills wants his place back and Nat Brown is coming back to fitness. He’ll play a friendly this week although playing him on Saturday would be an unnecessary risk.

"Pablo missed out through no fault of his own against Swindon, it was just circumstances that we needed Tony’s height in there, and he took his chance and earned his place again.

"Players are banging down my door demanding to know why they aren’t playing.

"I don’t mind that at all, I want that. I want them hungry and I’m happy that we’ve got the strength in depth to succeed."