Dover Athletic boss Andy Hessenthaler had mixed emotions this week as he prepared his side to welcome bottom side Braintree Town to Crabble after last weekend’s disappointing defeat at Maidenhead United.

When speaking with KSN this week, the Dover boss admitted, “It was disappearing as we had a few too many on an off day to be fair.” Hessenthaler continued, “the game was pretty tight which we always knew after the condition of the pitch which was dry and very bobbly. And Maidenhead are very good at what they do – they get the ball down early and have long throws that are very direct.”

“They deserved to win the game and it’s one that we must put behind us as soon as we can but to be fair, I think that it was just one defeat in seven away from home. We’ve had a good chat in the week and will go again at Braintree on Saturday.”

“I could say that it’s a must win game for us, but if I did say that Havant could win and or Aldershot could will so we’ll be in the same box as, so we’ve got to take full advantage and improve and put things behind us.”

“Although we’ve lost our last two games, our home form is OK, and you could say that we’ve had this little blip at the same time. We’re at home and so we’ll be expected to win as they’re rock bottom and we know that they’ll come at us from the start as they’ve nothing to lose and will keep fighting to the end.”

“It’s important with three of the next four at home we get some advantage as we’ve only got six home games left and if we can possibly win five of the six, we’ll be able to achieve what we want to achieve!”

Hessenthaler then reflected on his time in the Crabble hot seat thus far. “If someone had told me when we took over that we’d be where we are with eleven games to go, I would have snapped their hands off.”

“I cannot fault the boys even if I wanted to, but this is the time now, this is the crunch time and where we really must hit home how good a side we are. I really believe that we are a good side and can beat anyone on our day, but this is the critical part of the season now certainly for the teams at the bottom and the top.”

And so, to his team news for the weekend and Hessenthaler told us,” Josh Pash is so close to being back – I don’t think it will be this week, but he could be OK for the long trip to Hartlepool next week. He’s had one game behind closed doors this week against Folkestone and there’s another one arranged for next week and so hopefully by then we’ll have the full squad available for the run in!”