MIDWEEK DEFEAT EXPOSES INJURY-HIT SQUAD

Fitness levels at Ashford United are still giving manager Jason Whitmore cause for concern.

Whitmore’s side lost 3-0 at Herne Bay on Tuesday night with two of the goals coming as the Nuts & Bolts tired late on.

Ashford are 19th in Bostik South, having won just two of their first nine games and Whitmore has a growing injury list to add to his problems.

United don’t play this weekend and that break comes as a welcome relief for the boss.

“I’m glad we’ve got seven days off,” Whitmore said. “It’s a good thing for us because of the injuries.

“Normally I would have pulled them in on Saturday or even arranged a friendly but with the injuries we’ve had since the beginning of the season, it would be stupid.

“The players need to recover in order for us to work on individual fitness programmes. The gulf between some of our players, their fitness levels, is massive.”

George Humber and Jon Difford both came off injured at Herne Bay while Dave Botterill had to be withdrawn in the second half.

Joe Bingham needs a rest as his knee is swelling up after every game while Micky Phillips is another player not yet fully fit.

Throw in injuries to Brandon Williams and Morgan Seaman and with Max Watters on his way back from a knock and it’s not looking too clever for Whitmore.

He said: “The idea on Tuesday was to get Dave Botterill and Micky Phillips off and let Max have 60 minutes and give George a real good run-out and bring Isaac Boateng on but it didn’t happen.

“If we’re not doing well at 70 minutes and we get injuries in that game, we’re going to struggle until we can get the fitness levels up so players can last 90 minutes rather than 60 or 70.

“We’ll address that on Thursday and pull some players in individually and give them individual programmes to go away with.” Whitmore was left with mixed feelings after the Bay defeat.

He said: “There were so many positives. We’ve got to get in the habit of winning. We are progressing – the football we played in spells in the first half was excellent – but we’re in a results business.

“No-one’s going to care that we’ve done well in the first half, we’ve got to be more ruthless.

“It’s hard to take because other games we’ve lost we haven’t been quite there and we’ve been trying to stay in the game but Tuesday was hard to take because we were the better team by far in the first half.” Ashford’s next game is at home to South Park on Tuesday.

‘I’m glad we’ve got seven days off’