Chris Kinnear insists he won’t panic despite a fifth defeat in six games leaving Dover third-bottom in Vanarama Conference and reeling from a serious injury to keeper Mitch Walker.

Whites looked set for victory at fellow strugglers Dartford with 18 minutes left on Tuesday night but their 1-0 lead courtesy of a deflected Ricky Miller strike on eight minutes was wiped out with a Harry Crawford goal following a melee in which Walker (pictured) suffered an injury - originally suspected to be a broken arm but which scans later showed to be ligament damage.

With no reserve keeper on the bench, defender Sean Raggett went in goal but was beaten by Tom Bradbrook’s header five minutes from time and Whites’ hopes of salvaging a point ended when Jason Brown saved an injury-time Miller penalty.

The loss followed Saturday’s 1-0 reverse against Macclesfield at Crabble, which saw the hosts boss the game but spurn a host of chances.

Kinnear said: “For 70 minutes everything was going our way. We were all over them, we hit the woodwork and could have been more ahead.

"We created loads of chances, more than Saturday but we have done everything but win again.”

He added: “It’s not all doom and gloom. If we’d played badly and been beaten, then we’d be down in the dumps but we deserved to get something. We were better than them. We just need to learn to finish teams off.

“We could have taken more from these two games, and we had another missed penalty at Grimsby which could have been three points not one, but it’s pointless dwelling on anything. We will try to get up and running again on Saturday.”

Dover head to high-flying Torquay - a team who finished fifth in League 2 in 2012 - on Saturday with Kinnear searching for a loan keeper to compete with Lee Hook for the gloves at Plainmoor.

He added: “Torquay is another big game, but there are a lot of them. It’s a massive jump for the club. It’s been 12 years since they were in the Conference and it has changed a massive amount in that time.

“It’s a learning process for us - it takes time to get used to it. It’s a massive learning experience for everybody but there are still 36 games to go, we’ll not get too carried away.”