WE go into today s County Championship against Leicestershire at Grace Road knowing that defeat is not an option. We have slipped to fifth and we must start winning matches. Indeed, every match is now a cup final for us.

By Chris Silverwood

WE go into today's County Championship against Leicestershire at Grace Road knowing that defeat is not an option.

We have slipped to fifth and we must start winning matches. Indeed, every match is now a cup final for us.

Realistically, I feel we are now playing for second spot because Somerset have stolen a march on the other teams and are striding away.

However, there are as many as five teams now who probably feel they have a chance of that second spot. We could have made it a lot easier for ourselves had we beaten Derbyshire - as we should have - on the final day of last week's game at Southgate.

That final afternoon was extremely disappointing. We only had 219 to chase and it was a match we should have won comfortably. But we lost key wickets at key times. It is was a very quiet dressing room afterwards.

Although we have slipped to fifth we still have a game in hand over the top four. But we should be going into tomorrow's match in second or third place and with the momentum of a victory we should have had.

When we came back to training on Tuesday morning the hurt was still obvious to everyone. We were also told that our coach Richard Pybus had left because of personal reasons and John Emburey stepped in to take charge.

We had a long, hard session and are determined to make up for the Derby debacle by beating Leicestershire. They are third from bottom and they are a team we should be beating if we want to get that second promotion spot.

We need to get back to the basics which stood us in good stead in the first half of the season. We have to lift our game and start scoring competitive totals in first innings. In short, we need to kick-start our season at Grace Road.