Clark and his teammates fell behind in the third minute to a Conor Hourihane goal but were forcing the issue for the rest of the match, searching for a way back into the game which in the end proved elusive.

But against a side with Premier League aspirations, the 27-year-old believes that he and the team should take the positives from the performance.

“We played really well to be fair but if you don’t score goals, you don’t win games. I think it has been a factor this season to be honest, as far as performance goes, we were fantastic just that final third quality we were missing today.

“We have to believe in ourselves a bit more because we are a good side,” Clicker continued. “They are second in the league and we played them off the pitch really. One thing that has let us down this season is scoring goals, the most important thing in football.”

It was yet another new position for Clark yesterday, who impressed in a left-wing-back role he admits he was previously unfamiliar with.

“I seem to get further and further back now, I know he (Nathan Jones) mentioned about me playing in goal, but I think I could do a job there as well! Like I said in my interview the other week, wherever he wants me to play, I’ll play and give it my all for the team – that’s the main thing.”

The gaffer has been extremely complimentary of the former Accrington Stanley man and Clicker responded by saying: “It is always nice to get compliments, never get too high, never get too low. I just do my work on the training ground, try my best for the team on Saturday and Tuesday nights so that is the only thing I do.”

The team now have the opportunity to put things right against Coventry City on Tuesday night and Clark believes the team can head into that game full of confidence.

“We always say that we don’t want to look behind us, we want to be looking forward trying to catch the teams above up as much as we can. Obviously you need to do that by winning games so it was disappointing today, but two big games now.

“Looking forward to a massive game on Tuesday night, hopefully we can get two wins which would be massive. Every game in this league is a tough game so we will just go into it with confidence because like I said, we have played well today, didn’t get what we deserved but we will be full of confidence Tuesday night, raring to go.”