Fareham facing up with division’s top-two
Pete Stiles confessed Fareham Town could not be faced with two tougher Wessex League Premier matches than their upcoming matches to complete a hectic week of action.
But the Reds boss heads into the testing battles with the slight satisfaction of an improved showing - despite a 5-3 home FA Vase second round defeat to Abbey Rangers on Saturday.
Fareham welcome secondplaced Brockenhurst tonight before making the short trip to table-toppers Horndean on Saturday.
Between them both Brock and the Deans have lost just five times in 36 league matches combined this term.
While inconsistent Fareham have suffered seven defeats in their 17 league matches, finding themselves down in a lowly 13th position at present.
Stiles, whose side are without a Wessex Premier Division win in four matches, knows just how tough these next two fixtures will be for his players.
The Reds having won just two of their previous seven games in all compeitions - and one of those was a thumping 8-0 Portsmouth Senior Cup win over Hampshire Premier Harvest.
But he is hoping a positive result in either can arrest a recent slump in form. Stiles said: ‘Brockenhurst and then Horndean - it doesn’t get any tougher than that does it.
‘We’ve just got to get on with it, we’ve just got to keep going, the encouraging thing (against Abbey Rangers), that performance was far better than a lot of our recent performances. There was a lot of fight, a lot of effort, everyone was really digging in and trying hard.
‘Sometimes I think in some of our recent performances we haven’t shown that but we did (against Abbey), it was back tohowIwantedit,butwe got punished with two late goals.’
Stiles will assess his squad ahead of the meeting with Brockenhurst at Cams Alders.
Although the Reds boss is hoping to have both Ross Kidson and Stuart Morgan back for the visit of Pat McManus’ side.