Chairman Gordon Gibb today issued a "don't panic" call to City's disgruntled fans.

The knives are out for boss Nicky Law on the club message board after a run of three straight defeats, including Saturday's 4-0 home thrashing by Sunderland. But Gibb made it clear the club would not make any rash decisions.

He said: "It is not a panic situation and we aren't in an insurmountable position. Fans pay good money to be in the position to make knee-jerk reactions. But as a board that's something we must not allow ourselves to do.

"Home performances haven't been of a sufficiently high standard and that's what we are focusing on in the next week.

"But we've just played two pretty good teams in the space of four days. It was the equivalent of playing Leicester and Portsmouth last year and they weren't half as fancied as Sunderland and West Ham.

"I was more disappointed with the Gillingham result because that was one of the games we needed to win. That was a lower point for me than going down to two exceptionally strong sides.

"Has our opinion of Nicky changed on the basis of the last two results? No. But were Gillingham and the Darlington cup exit unacceptable? Yes."

Gibb plans to hold contract talks with Law later this week although no deal has been put on the table. "Nicky has not been made a tangible offer. We've just begun the process of formulating the structure of a contract with the idea of him staying at the club for an extra two years on an incentivised basis."

City have an 11-day break before facing Preston when they will be looking to win in front of their home fans for the first time in five attempts this season.

Gibb added: "To put things in perspective, we are only one point worse off than at this point last year. We played Wolves, Palace, Stoke and Grimsby and took three points and we thought that wasn't a bad start.

"But we can't get complacent and cannot go on dropping points at home against sides like Gillingham.

"We all agree the standard of entertainment at home matches has not been high enough. That's something we have passed on to Nicky and he is man enough to take that on the chin.

"Fans pay good money to have their opinions. Unfortunately, myself and the board are charged with making rational sense of all this.

"I would just ask that our real supporters stick with us, continue to pay their money and we will try to reward them with better performances, hopefully starting against Preston."