Chris Kinnear has not waved goodbye to Dover's promotion hopes just yet, but he concedes it's 'extremely unlikely' they will make the play-offs.

Saturday's shock home defeat to Torquay and a 2-2 draw with Macclesfield at Crabble on Tuesday have left Dover needing to overturn a three-point and six-goal deficit to fifth-placed Aldershot in Saturday's season finale, when they head to Barrow (12.15pm) while the Shots host lowly Braintree.

Kinnear admitted: "I am very disappointed, as everyone is. They only had two shots and then hit the post at the end.

"Again we got caught. People come here, stick people behind the ball and catch us. It's very disappointing."

Kinnear opted to leave Moses Emmanuel on the bench until the final five minutes, though he set up a goal within seconds of his introduction and had a chance to win it in stoppage-time.

Kinnear insisted: "We picked a team we thought would win the game. Obviously it didn't work. We did enough really. We scored two goals but we let two in, which was what we were trying not to do. We knew we'd score.

"Moses hadn't scored for a long time. We were trying to get Joe Healy, who has been scoring, as high up the pitch as possible. It's alright in hindsight. It's the way football is.

"We thought we could have nicked it but we gave away two really bad goals again. it's been our Achilles heel this year really, we've let too many in, even though we've been scoring more than anyone else."

Kinnear claimed all he could was hope that Braintree do Dover a favour at Aldershot while he focused on beating Barrow.

He said: "There's a mathematic possibility still and we've said that to the players. We have talked about it. I haven't seen it happen too often, but who knows?

"We've got to give it the best shot we can. Who knows what happens with Braintree? We haven't given it up but it is going to be extremely difficult, a lot harder than it was before (Macclesfield)."

Reflecting on the campaign as a whole, Kinnear admitted: "When you get close to what you're trying to achieve you are disappointed, but it's part of football."

He claimed: "For three years we have been the most consistent side in the league. 8th, play-offs and then at least 7th this year.

"That's not a bad three years, is it? The club's getting the infrastructure, we've got the stand now, we've got a chance of pushing on from here, it's good that we've got a great base.

"I don't think (play-offs) was ever nailed-on, was it? We had it in our hands but we were playing good sides. For a club like this to be that close all season I think is amazing.

"People are disappointed but it's amazing really, early in the season we'd lost three of our best players but we had to get a side together to replace them.

"We've got ourselves up there which is great. To be up at the top of the league or the past three seasons is an amazing achievement."