After defeat at home to Cray Valley PM, joint caretaker manager Harry Wheeler felt that the fringe players had missed a great opportunity to stake their claim for a first team place.

“I think a lot of people answered the question of why they’re not playing. If any of them were sitting on the edge of being at the club or not, some of them have sealed their fate.” he said.

“You want a good and healthy competitive squad but they can’t come and ask the question. It makes our decisions easier but it’s disappointing that players can’t come and show against a team, with no disrespect to them, a lot of levels lower. They should be coming and performing at a much better level. They should be coming and making us have decisions and questions about what we’re going to do but they haven’t.”.

He suspected that there may have been complacency amongst the team. “Through a bit of ego. The lads probably thought they wouldn’t have to work that hard and that they could come and play and do what they want to do. There’s no place for ego in football. Work rate will always out run it.

“Work rate will always out run talent. They worked harder, they had more desire, they had a go and that’s something you would never accept in a league game, and you can’t accept it here. It’s something that can’t be accepted. You gain clarity from it, and where you want to go forward from there.”

Explaining the absence of Jamie Slabber who had been expected to start he said “Jamie texted me yesterday saying he’s ill, ‘but I need to play so I’m going to play.’ then he texted me this morning saying ‘I literally can’t get out of bed, I’m not going to work.’

“Jamie’s an honest lad, he’s a good lad Jamie. If he’s ill, he’ll genuinely be ill. It’s a shame we didn’t get to see him. He needs the minutes himself. He said ‘I’m gutted. I need to play.’”

Luke Saggers was added to the starting line up very late having been injured since the summer. “Luke, you could see, is nowhere near fit enough and you’d expect that. That’s not against the lad whose played a half, forty-five minutes in eight months. There’s a positive for him.

As far as Archie Johnson and Joey Taylor were concerned, he said “The young lads, they did okay. There’s bits they need to learn. The youngsters, and then you had the two trialists (Kent Bannister and Bryan Testolin), they did alright. We’ll speak to them and give them our full thoughts.”

Speaking about Dean Leacock, who returned to the club a week earlier after a spell at Billericay Town, Wheeler said “One of the biggest positives tonight was that Dean got ninety minutes. He worked hard and did alright. Dean’s a good player. He just needs the games and to get back in.”

Another addition to the party has been new goalkeeping coach Del Preddie. “Del’s come in. He’s been a good player in non league for a long time. He’s played at a good level. Tristan (Lewis, co-caretaker manger) knows Del very well. He’s come in from Hayes and Yeading.

“He’s a good character to have around. He’s got a lot of energy. He’s a good goalkeeping coach. Hopefully, he’ll just bring in another senior figure in the changing room. He sometimes has things to say and I can only see that he’ll add to us.”

Picture supplied by Dave Budden.