FAC1R: Maidstone v Torquay United 3pm 9 Nov 2019

It is a little frustrating that after expecting the trio of Hall, Little and Edwards back at this stage that all of them have sustained further injuries taking them out for another month apart from Little who will need 10 weeks which puts him out until sometime in January. Connor is also long-term injured until around the middle of December.

All quality players that you would expect to be in the side when fit but there is no denying that we are playing exceptionally well without them with seven wins out of eight. Our performance levels have been kept up with Johnson adding to the squad since the start of the season to achieve this with Whitfield, Cundy and now Janneh coming in with the latter just given permission to play in this competition. We now have 6 loanees on our books with a maximum of five in the matchday squad but injuries hasn’t seen this restriction come into play.

To some extent, these injuries have made Johnson selection decisions that bit easier and I would be surprised if we don’t start with the same team that put Halifax to the sword last week. With up to 7 subs allows I will be interested to see if Keating and Duku make an appearance there with Koszela and Slough also available to add to the squad so that we can see who is available.

Although we are on an artificial pitch, the fact we train on one and had experience of this last year in particular shouldn’t make this a significant issue although it may take time to bed in at the start of the match.

Maidstone do have experience in this side and of course were only relegated from the National league last year but if we play like we have been playing then there is a strong chance of winning this game. We are after all, National League South champions and much improved from last year, partly with additions from last year but mainly from a very young squad being a year older with all that match day experience of winning the league and then playing and competing in the next one above.

Difficult to get a decent run, as he is injured a lot and for lengthy periods.

So here we go, another FA Cup tie against Uninspiring Banana Skin opponents...such is our lot though! 


If we get through this, is there any chance that we can play either them up the road, or them down the road? 

After some good play from us, Matt Buse deflects a cross into his own net

My fear we would lose players to injury in this game.
Liam Davis our most consistent player off with ankle injury!

Could be a big loss for us if lengthy or serious.
Hopefully its just more precautionary.

Didn't have a good feeling about this one. The injury to Liam Davis is even more worrying.