Injury crisis forces Hume's hand

Friday 06th November 2009

MAIDSTONE UNITED joint-manager Lloyd Hume must do a head count to see who is fit to play against Kingstonian tomorrow, writes Stephen McCartney.

Peter Hawkins (suspended), James Peacock (ankle ligaments), Ashley Ulph (knee ligaments), Ant Bodle (broken nose), Jermaine Darlington (flu), Dean Hernandez-Bradshaw (ankle ligaments), Roland Edge (calf) and Meshach Nugent (on loan at VCD Athletic) are all out of the Ryman Premier League clash.

“I think it’s well publicised that we’ve got a lot of people out this week,” a concerned Hume told www.kentishfootball.co.uk today.

“I can’t even sort of say it’s a threadbare squad, we’ve really not even got the squad to put people on the bench.

“It may be the case where I have to be even on the bench tomorrow - it’s that bad!

“We’ve got eight people out and when you’ve only got a squad of 14, eight people leaves you very, very thin and even a couple of the reserves that sometimes we’ve pulled into the squad aren’t available so it’s making it very, very difficult for us tomorrow.”

Looking forward to the Homelands clash against Kingstonian, their first home league game since 22nd September, Hume knows the Surrey giants are a better side than had started the campaign.

“The reality is they’ve spent a lot of money lately and that’s not what we’ve got,” said Hume. “They’ve spent money to perform at this level as they struggled initially but they’re results of late have put them up there challenging so we’re expecting them to be very, very good tomorrow.

“We’ve had a couple of reports on them in the last couple of weeks, which all tell us they’re a strong, powerful side.”

Despite his injury crisis, Hume is still expecting his depleted side to compete and stretch their unbeaten run to five games.

“At the end of the day we’ve only been beaten twice in 13 games and one of them was against Woking (in the FA Cup) and in terms of that we’ve done very well.

“Sometimes we’ve had to grind some results out and other times we’ve played some decent football.

“We’re at home tomorrow and it’s a bit of a novelty being at home. Every time we’ve relied on these youngsters they’ve stepped up to the plate and I’m not going to use that (injury crisis) as an excuse tomorrow so we’ll be looking for a win.”

www.kentishfootball.co.uk will be covering this game.

Visit Maidstone United’s website: www.maidstoneunited.co.uk

Maidstone United v Kingstonian

Ryman Premier League

Saturday 7th November 2009

Kick Off 3:00pm

At Homelands Stadium, Ashford Road, Kingsnorth, Ashford, Kent TN26 1NJ