“It’s been coming” – Deal Town boss Steve King’s verdict on last weekend’s win over Isthmian South East leaders Three Bridges last Saturday as he looks for his side to push on as they make the short trip to face Sevenoaks Town on Saturday.

Speaking to KSN this week, the Deal boss told us, “We all really pleased with the result last week – a strong side who are comfortably clear at the top of the League – it was a good win, but also a well-deserved win; our performance was excellent and, as I have been saying for possibly a couple of months now, it has been coming; we have been playing really well, our performance levels have been a lot better especially when we have played sides in and around the play-off places.”

“We have come away from many of those games asking why we didn’t take anything from them as we probably deserved to but didn’t. To actually get that “monkey” off our backs was nice – we beat Faversham 4-1 at home, to now beat Three Bridges as well and score another three goals was really pleasing.”

Deal won the game 3-2 after being 3-1 ahead at the break and King admitted, “I think there would always be “doubts” when you are playing a side that had scored twenty-three goals in their previous five games that they would come back after half time and have a go!

“And then to concede a scrappy goal after only five or six minutes after the break, I did feel like we managed the game well after that – yes there were some nervy times in the last ten minutes – I think that would be usual in that situation, but across the game we had more chances and probably should have scored more than we did in the first half.”

“Both goals we conceded were really scrappy goals and so I think that across the ninety minutes, towards the end the fact that we had conceded last kick against Jersey Bulls, we conceded last kick against Margate, there were some nervy moments, but I think we handled them superbly!”

“I think that this year’s table in our League is exactly why the authorities are looking to change the play-offs to seven teams from next season. Where the top five have got away a little bit, it looks like a massive gap,” King said reflecting on the fact that current fifth placed Sittingbourne sit three points ahead of sixth placed Jersey (and twelve in front of King’s side who have played the same games) but have two games in hand of the Channel Islanders. 

“We possibly have too much to do,” the Deal boss went on, “But what we will be doing is trying to get as many points as we can and if any of the top five currently do falter and have a bad run, we want to make sure that we can capitalise. Looking ahead if we do go to seven teams in the Play Offs next year, we would currently be sat five points off the post season places with two games in hand!”

“The top five I think will be difficult for us then this year,” King continued, “but we are on more points this season than we were on this time last season from the same number of games and we finished seventh last year. So, we are on track to do pretty well – it is very tight as I think there is just nine points between seventh and sixteenth and we are right in the middle group with some big games coming up.”

“We are at Sevenoaks on Saturday who are one place below us, Herne Bay was recently called off and are one place above us, and we are playing a lot of sides around us – Margate in two weeks’ time – sides that we know in and around us who are going to be in and around the top eight come the end of the season, and we want to be in amongst it come May!”