Weymouth aim to return to winning ways against the rock-bottom Dover Athletic

Embed from Getty Images

The Terras will look to return to winning ways as they welcome bottom-of-the-table Dover Athletic to the Bob Lucas Stadium.

Weymouth manager Brian Stock will hope his side can regain momentum for their promotion push as they face Dover Athletic, one of only two teams in the league yet to record a victory this season.

Stock’s side are without a victory in their last two games and sit 11th in the Vanarama National League, just two points off the top seven.

The Terras most recently suffered a 4-2 defeat to the league leaders Dagenham & Redbridge, despite leading 2-1 at half-time.

Yet, Stock took courage from the gutsy display in midweek and hoped his side could recover well enough to get their season back on track against the Whites.

“We’ve pushed and gone close to beating a really good side, Dagenham & Redbridge are top of the table for a reason.

“The attitude in the squad is excellent, we ourselves have got a really good bunch of players in our dressing room and we will bounce back I’m sure of it.

“We’ve played two games in four days, we are at a level now where we are having to work extremely hard and the players are consistently doing that, which gives us a real chance in any of our games.

“The later kick-off will affect the players slightly and they will have to adjust their eating patterns, but for me, it changes nothing,

“We will have to freshen up the team to avoid players feeling fatigued from the past few matches, but this group of players are very good on and off the pitch and we always knew we would lose games this season but it is always about how you bounce back, which I hope we can show against Dover.”

On the other hand, Dover Athletic make the three-and-a-half-hour trip along the south coast off the back of a 4-1 thumping to the hands of Eastleigh in midweek.

The defeat was the Whites’ fourth in five matches and continued a torrid start to the season. A disastrous first half saw the Dover trail 4-0 at half-time before a second half consolation goal from Aaron Cosgrave made the scoreline look slightly easier on the eye.

Ahead of the fixture against Weymouth, the Whites’ manager Andy Hessenthaler was under no illusion that their opponents will be feeling confident of compiling the misery on his team.

“We are not going to hide behind the excuse of being a part-time club facing full-time clubs in this league, the players can forget about that, at the end of the day it is 11 against 11 on the pitch.

“We’ve had a look at ourselves as a management team and a few players looked tired last time out and we probably should have left them out.

“We’ve also got a lot of injuries and we picked up a few more in midweek, we’ll see who is available for Weymouth, but they are probably rubbing their hands together at the prospect of playing us at the moment.

“We can’t feel sorry for ourselves though, we have to try and put the Eastleigh match aside and put it right this Saturday.”

Key Battle: Bradley Ash vs Harry Ransom

Embed from Getty Images

Weymouth’s top goalscorer this season Bradley Ash will be looking to add to his tally of three goals when the 25-year-old striker faces off against a depleted Dover defence.

Ash scored from the penalty spot against the league leaders Dagenham & Redbridge and is looking to score in back-to-back games for the first time this season.

In his way will be Harry Ransom of Dover Athletic. The 21-year-old centre-half rejoined the Whites on loan from League Two side Crawley Town and played his first minutes of the season in the second half of Dover’s defeat to Eastleigh.

He will try to stop Ash from scoring but it will be a difficult task for the young defender knowing the threat of the Weymouth forward.

Follow us on Twitter @ProstInt