Whitstable Town will be looking to defend their eight-point lead at the top of the SCEFL Premier Division this weekend when they are scheduled to travel to the Artic Stadium to face struggling Stansfeld and manager Jamie Coyle wants to extend their lead at the summit.
Jamie Coyle’s side eased eight points clear courtesy of a stunning second half display against Play Off chasing Sutton Athletic at the Belmont and postponements elsewhere.
Ahead narrowly at the break through Nathan Jeche’s early strike in a first period where the visitors had the majority of possession without really testing the home defence, the home side stretched out after the break and secured the points through a magnificent Bradley Shaffer volley and a brace from Javaun Splatt to extend the Oystermen’s side lead at the top of the table from five to eight.
We caught up with a delighted manager this week and we began by reflecting on Saturday’s win.
“We struggled early on to get a grip with their shape – they had a lot of possession but didn’t really trouble our keeper. We were much better second half and thoroughly deserved to win the game!”
“We are bare bones at the moment too with Mikey Dalton (injured), Jake McIntyre (injured), Joe Healy (unwell) and Dean Grant suspended and they are the real organisers and experience of our squad so to beat a team like Sutton without them is a terrific result!”
“You could see those boys weren’t involved and it did take us some time to get into the game, but with the way that we defended was really, really pleasing!”
Whilst singing the plaudits for Schaffer’s fine goal, Coyle looked beyond the midfielder’s strike – “It was a great goal – he does it in training and has done it in a game earlier this season, but what it does mean that we now have four players who have scored double figures this season and we will need that to continue between now and the end of the season if we are going to get any success.”
“As a defender myself, to see people throwing themselves in front of the ball when you’re four-nil up in the last minutes was great to see. I’ve been talking for a while that we had to get back to those clean sheets which will help us moving forward.”
Dan Colmer’s clean sheet was just the Oystermen’s fourth in thirteen games – “Outside of distribution he had a quiet day, or a save to make and that’s because of the players in front of him have that desire for the ball not to go in the back of our net.”
With the resumption of the Club’s Isuzu FA Vase recommencing next weekend, Coyle told us, “I do think that we still have some areas where we are short and have to look at. We’re hopeful a couple of the missing will be back for Harpenden but in case they’re not we have to explore options.”