Billy Smith fears that Tooting & Mitcham may have been found out at the Ryman Premier level as the Terrors’ hopes of making the play-offs took a major knock last weekend.

A 2-0 home defeat to Hendon saw Tooting slide to eighth in the table and extended their horrendous Imperial Fields run to eight league and cup games without a win.

But Smith is refusing to be too hard on his side.

He said: “To be perfectly honest I think for the majority of this season we have been punching above our weight.

“Things are beginning to catch up with us now.

“When we play teams away from home we get the ball down and play and we catch teams out, but these sides that are more established at this level or have bigger squads completely change things around when they come to our place.

“They mix things up and we do not have the luxury of doing that.

“So although I am obviously disappointed with how things are going I am not going to lose any sleep over it.”

Tooting are back in action at Carshalton on Tuesday night - a game that begins a sequence of five away games in six matches.

But the Terrors will have to do without Colin Hartburn, who was sent off for the second successive game for shoving a Hendon player in Saturday’s game.

Smith added: “The sending off was an absolute joke.

“A Sutton player did exactly the same the week before and gets a warning and Colin gets sent off.

“When the ref gave him a red card I could not believe it.

“But we just have to battle on.

“I have never been in a league like this before where every game you play you could win or lose, and that counts for every other team in this division.

“So we must not lose hope as there is still plenty to play for.”

Tooting & Mitcham’s next three games: Mar 6 Horsham (a), 9 Margate (a), 13 Dartford (h)