WORCESTER City’s performance against league leaders Chelmsford City deserved a better reward according to manager Richard Dryden.

City produced their best display on home soil since the stunning AFC Wimbledon on October 4, but were beaten by Ollie Berquez’s 35th-minute strike.

It was their sixth defeat in seven matches — five of those without scoring a goal — and drops them into the bottom half of Blue Square South.

Dryden, however, was quite upbeat after the match and believes his team were much better than they have been in recent weeks.

He said: “I’m still scratching my head over how we haven’t got anything from the game although we threw caution to the wind for the last 10 minutes and left ourselves open to maybe going under a bit more.

“It’s heartening but that is three on the bounce where we’ve been beaten.

“The strange thing is I feel pretty proud of how they’ve done but that’s not a losing mentality.

“I think we built on the bad performance against Welling in the Wimbledon game, which wasn’t too bad apart from the goals, and I thought we were decent but one bit of magic split us open.”

He added: “The results haven’t been great but this was probably one of our better performances at home albeit we got beaten. We created a lot which is good against a side who are top of the league by a fair few points.”

The game also saw Dryden switch to a 3-5-2 system, a formation regularly used by predecessor Andy Preece, with new signing Tom Kemp bolstering the defence.

“It was just to shake something up,” Dryden said. “We have been either 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 and it maybe looked a bit stale so I thought I would change it around.

“We know they are a good side and they flood the box and to a certain extent it worked apart from the goal where we got cut open.”

Kemp, released by British Gas Business Premier Divis-ion Halesowen and signed last Thursday, worked with Dryd-en at Tamworth.

Dryden said: “He’s got ambitions to go and play higher, whether it be in the league above us or into the top four leagues.

“I’ve known him since I was at Tamworth and he’ll put his head on the block for you.

“He wants to play and he said he’d come and play for nothing if he had to.

“He’s another lad who’s come in with a great attitude and I think you can see he’s a quality defender. He’s got the potential to get into the league.”

However, Kemp’s addition is unlikely to spark an influx of players.

The City boss said: “I’d love to bring people in from League clubs on loan but it comes down to finance and what we’ve got.

“We’ve got to be careful who goes out to supplement people coming.”