Fleetwood Town's players must do better when defending

Town, who are normally strong when defending set-pieces, have conceded from dead ball situations recently and the boss is aware of that particular trend.

Another set-piece goal came last weekend when Town were eliminated from the FA Cup with defeat against Hull City.

“To concede from set plays is disappointing,” Barton acknowledged.

“It’s something we’re going to have to look at after conceding from one against Charlton and now against Hull.

“We probably need to address that, certainly if we want to improve.

“When you play the sides that are quite evenly-matched, sometimes it’s the set plays that can be the difference.

“I’m looking forward to going back to Hull in the league, it’ll be a different Fleetwood Town side and it’ll probably be a different Hull side.

“I think we learned an awful lot at the weekend, we have the likes of Charlie Mulgrew and Mark Duffy to come back in as well.

“It’s disappointing to be out of the cup because it’s a magical competition, but if there’s a year to exit the cup early, it’s probably this one.”

Another concern for Barton is the workload being placed on his side at present.

Some of those players who have joined up with the Highbury squad have found game time to be limited elsewhere.

Barton feels fatigue is already beginning to show with Town in the midst of a hectic fixture schedule.

He said: “We’ve got a few lads who have had an enormous spike in their game load.

“I think you could see that in the game. Tom Edwards was the same, he ran himself into the ground and just looked tired really.

“He’s played a lot of games. We’ve played Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday.

“We’re in a good spot, we know where we are. Cup football is cup football but our bread and butter is the league and moving back up that League One table.”

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