Grantham Town take on Anstey Nomads in the Northern Premier League Midlands Division

Head coach Louis Bland is demanding his Grantham Town side be '1,000 times better' as they aim to bounce back from their weekend woes tonight (Tuesday).

The Gingerbreads went down to a 5-0 away reversal at Quorn on Saturday in their Northern Premier League Midlands Division match.

They now face a highly-rated Anstey Nomads side this evening at the Meres with Bland calling for a rapid improvement from his charges.

He said: "We are going to have to be 1,000 times better than Saturday.

"We are going to have to defend set pieces better and we need to run more than the opposition.

"I normally say after the weekend that we will be better on Tuesday but we have to be this time.

"We haven't been good enough and we've got a lot to work on."

Grantham host an Anstey side who reached the play-offs last season and have started the new campaign strongly.

They enjoyed a promising run in the FA Cup and stunned higher level Stamford on Saturday with a 5-1 away win in the FA Trophy.

The Gingerbreads will welcome back Sam Muggleton from suspension as Bland looks for a much-improved display from his side after Saturday's sorry showing.

He added: "We've got a lot of hard work to do.

"The problem is that you go to places like Quorn, who are a very good side, and you can get beat by four or five.

"There is a way to get beaten by four or five goals though and we let ourselves down.

"We let the club down and we need to improve quickly. I saw Anstey's result at the weekend and it's going to be a very interesting one for us."

Grantham conceded two goals inside the opening 19 minutes of the match at Quorn with Ryan Beswick netting twice for their second-placed hosts.

It sparked an early double substitution from Bland who replaced both Lewis Daff and Harry Olivant with Ethan Bojang and Sam Edgington.

He explained: "I could have changed all 11 and I did feel sorry for Lewis and Harry.

"I have probably thrown them under the bus a bit to try and get a reaction but, if I hadn't made a couple of changes, we could have been six or seven down at half-time which would have been more embarrassing than the final score.

"They are probably both angry with me but I'll speak to them because, if I'd had 11 subs, then I would have done all of them.

"Sometimes you have to do what you've got to do to try and win games of football and, after I made the changes, it did liven the other nine up.

"We had started to get back into it by half-time but, after that, we were really poor for the last half-an-hour."

Quorn netted a further three times in the second half without reply as goals from Jordan Gough and a Courey Grantham brace secured a comfortable win for the hosts.

Bland added: "It was another difficult one and there's not too many words for me to describe it - we were just not good enough unfortunately.

"The first three goals were set pieces and the second one just summed it up because it bounced three or four times in the penalty area and we were nowhere near it.

"The other two goals were far too easy and it was like a knife through butter."

Grantham had handed a debut to Freddie Allen who has joined on loan from League Two side Doncaster Rovers.

The defeat leaves them second-from-bottom of the table with just one win from their opening 10 games.