CITY BOSS WANTS TOP 10 FINISH

Canterbury City manager Ben Smith wants at least a top-half finish from his side after the convincing victory over Deal Town on Saturday.

City beat their landlords 4-1 at the Charles Ground to make it back-to-back wins in the Southern Counties East League, Premier Division.

Smi th said the team’ s expectations have changed from the start of the season and he hopes to use this impressive performance as a platform for the rest of the campaign.

He said: “If you’d have asked me where we’d finish with the enough for City who were 3-0 up by half-time.

Smith said: “I was delighted. We have been on a real downward spiral after bringing in a lot of high profile players for this league. Results haven’t gone our way.

“We have played better than that and come away with nothing but we took our chances and had desire and grit.

“There were spells when we had been good on the football but the dark arts of the game we didn’t do particularly well and I told them today there were three things I wanted to see from them – pride, passion and togetherness.”

There were several controversial refereeing decisions in the match. Smith believed Deal should have been down to 10 men in the first half after one of his players was kicked on the ground.

He was then himself sent off for kicking the dugout after one of his players was booked for diving.

Smith said: “If our players run around the referee there he gets sent off. He’s kicked him on the ground. If you raise your hands it’s a straight red. It surprised me he stayed on the pitch.

“The FA want to clamp out things like crowding the referee but unless you do it you don’t get the decision. You are in a no-win situation. For me it is a straight red, there’s no debate there.

“He’s booked our lad for diving and I didn’t think he dived. I kicked the dugout and he sent me off, which was harsh. Would he rather me scream and shout at him over the decision?”

Canterbury host Chatham Town on Saturday.