Abbott keen to make up for lost time

SITTINGBOURNE boss Gary Abbott says his side must take advantage of their games-in-hand if they’re to clinch promotion this season, writes Stephen McCartney.

The Bourne Park outfit are presently in eighth place in the congested Ryman League Division One South table with 49 points from 28 games, and they must bag maximum points over a three day period if they’re to climb into the play-off zone come Monday night.

Abbott’s men stretched their unbeaten run to five, as Tom Bradbrook’s header ended Worthing’s impressive 21-match unbeaten run last weekend.

“I was confident of going down there,” Abbott told www.kentishfootball.co.uk tonight. “We do well against the teams up the top. We’ve gone out there to try and attack them and we’ve come back with three points and I think we’ve deserved it as well - it was a brilliant day.

And they face ninth-placed side Eastbourne Town at Bourne Park on Saturday, before welcoming perennial strugglers Corinthian-Casuals on Monday.

Sittingbourne play eight games in March and Abbott wants to make up for lost time.

“We’ve had four games postponed over the last six weeks and those four games I’d expect to sort of win three of them,” he said.

“So if you add those nine points onto our total now we could be sitting in second or maybe even top. It’s all about getting points in the bag. It’s a big weekend for us, we’ve got Eastbourne at home on Saturday and then we play Monday night as well.

“Every game is going to be hard, there’s no easy games, but they are two games we’ve got to look to get six points from.”

Abbott believes his side have to win nine of their last fourteen games to give themselves a chance of promotion this term.

“From the games we started at Worthing Saturday, out of the 15 we want to win ten of them, that’s our aim,” he said.

“The other five, no-one’s going to win the whole of them. We’ve got off to a good start (beating Worthing), and we’ll treat them like cup finals. We’re just being more attack minded really.”

And Abbott added he is pleased that his side have now cut out silly mistakes at the back.

“I think our defence is a lot more solid now,” he said. “I think it’s all about getting your defence right and we’re cutting out mistakes.

“We didn’t have Matt Bourne (at Worthing) and I was worried about that. Nick Reeves came in and he was man-of-the-match - he was brilliant.

“I’m not going to change the team for Saturday, Bourney will be on the bench.

“Considering what we done at the start of the season we were letting in goals for fun. We need to get in a few more clean sheets but we’ll always score goals. Our main thing is to keep it tight and we’ve got goalscorers in our team.”

Visit Sittingbourne’s website: www.sittingbournefc.co.uk

Sittingbourne v Eastbourne Town
Ryman League Division One South
Saturday 28^th February 2009
Kick Off 3:00pm
At Bourne Park, Central Park, Church Road, Sittingbourne, ME10 3SB