Guernsey FC v Newhaven - Saturday 27 September, 1pm (Victoria Park)
The Green Lions suffered a 2-1 defeat on the road to previously win-less Lingfield on Tuesday night, which cost them the chance to make up ground on the sides above them in the Southern Combination Premier Division.
GFC currently sit eighth on 12 points and have games in hand on all the teams above them, but they already trail pacesetters Haywards Heath Town by a dozen points and while manager Tony Vance acknowledged that the odd slip-up is inevitable in a 38-game campaign, they cannot become a habit if they want to be in the hunt for promotion.
‘We cannot afford too many more, but that’s football isn’t it? The beauty of it is that we now have a game on Saturday and another on Tuesday to come up with a response,’ he said.
‘Newhaven will probably be our toughest challenge yet. They are going well, so it’s time for us to step up.’
Even having had a couple of days to reflect on his side’s performance against Lingfield, Vance did not try to hide his frustration at an opportunity missed.
GFC fell behind to Reese Cartwright’s goal against the run of play in the first half and missed the chance to get back on level terms before the interval when Ross Allen had his penalty saved by Jack Webb-Olley.
They did conjure an equaliser early in the second half when Frazer Maginnis scored his first goal for the club, but then could not make their pressure count before conceding Jeff Duah-Kessie’s winner with quarter-of-an-hour remaining after failing to clear their lines at a set-piece.
‘It was a game we should have won, but because we lacked an end product, we did not deserve to win,’ Vance said.
‘In saying that, for all the opportunities and 18-yard box entries we had, no-one could have begrudged us a result. It was wave after wave, but they defended well, their keeper made some good saves and when they cleared it long, they had a threat with their front three. That was where their first goal came from, their second goal was really poor defending from our point of view.’
On a bad night for GFC, they also lost Simon Arnold to a knee injury in the warm-up which could keep him on the sidelines for a while.
Also missing today are Ben Solway, who is out with an ankle ligament problem, and Tom Vaudin, who is ill, while Jacob Fallaize is unavailable.
You need to be logged in to comment. If you had an account on our previous site, you can migrate your old account and comment profile to this site by visiting this page and entering the email address for your old account. We'll then send you an email with a link to follow to complete the process.