Manager Andy Drury is looking forward to the Kent derby against Dartford on Saturday and is hoping his Folkestone Invicta side can get back to winning ways.

Folkestone Invicta head into the start of the Christmas football on the back of three successive defeats. Yet despite this, Andy Drury’s side are just four points and five places outside the Isthmian Premier’s Play Off places as they get ready to face Ady Pennock’s Dartford in a mouth-watering game to the festive programme. 

Speaking to KSN, Drury said, “We’re in a fairly reasonable position going into Christmas. We had a good run then got an awful lot of injuries in one go which was really unfortunate.”

“We’re working through them, but have had a couple of disappointing results, but we are still tenth, still battling with the injuries which are slowly clearing up, but it has been a bit of a nightmare over the few weeks.”

“We need to get the boys back on the pitch, getting them fit and healthy, because when everyone is, we are one of the best teams in the division.” 

“We’re bolstering the squad going into the next few weeks which we need and needed to do. Perhaps we should have done it a few weeks ago, but we hoped the injured would only be a week or two which doesn’t really make it practical to bring people in if they are just going to play one game.”

“We tried to get through it, but it hasn’t worked out and with a lot of games coming up and into January, we have bolstered the squad with hopefully still more movement to come in to get us through January which is what we needed to do.” 

“We are in an OK position, but we need to kick on now over Christmas and New Year!” 

Looking ahead to the derby at Cheriton Road with the in-form Darts (who are currently fourth in the table), Drury admitted, “This League is so tight and anyone can beat anyone on their day!”

“I said at the start that Dartford are a good side and will be up there – on our day I do think that we can beat anyone and it will be if we turn up and what bodies we can get out there and do it from our perspective really.” 

“We play Dartford, Lewes and Wingate over Christmas and they are three teams who are around us which means we can take points off them as we seem to play better against the better teams and I think that they are good games for us to be in.”

“I know that we have six or seven games very quickly, it’s a lot of games that can go either way, and if we can get the run together, you will be cemented in the Play Off places, but there’s also the other side and if you don’t, you’re looking above trying to get back in there.” 

“We need to kick on and we probably should be doing better – hopefully the injuries will clear up going into the second half of the season as I am pretty positive that we have the squad now to kick on and have a really good second half of the season.”