Dartford boss Steve King has stepped up his recruitment drive as injuries threaten to derail their season.

The Darts have regained momentum with three derby wins in eight days in National League South, but the injuries are now coming as thick and fast as the games.

Dartford visit Havant on Wednesday night, travel to Needham Market in the FA Trophy this weekend and are then at Hungerford on Tuesday night.

“I’ll be signing four or five players this week,” declared King. “The squad is thin now, we’ve got rid of a number of players but we’ll see new recruits come in this week.

“We won’t train, there’s no room to train anyway with the game on Wednesday. We need four or five people coming in that the squad can look at and say they’re a quality player.”

King had to rush defender Connor Essam back earlier than expected from a shoulder injury to face Welling on Saturday after Tom Bonner (hamstring) failed a fitness test.

He then lost Danny Leonard (glutes) to injury in the second half and was counting the walking wounded prior to the Havant game.

“Connor shouldn’t have played,” explained King. “He said that he knew we had no centre-halves and that if we wanted him to play then he would do.

“I thought he was outstanding. Tom has done his hamstring and we were down to one centre-half.”

Havant surprisingly sit 12th in the table, seven points adrift of the play-off places, but King is refusing to take them lightly.

“People say things about Havant but they’re a good side,” said King. “There are players in their team that I would sign.

“They are a good side but they’re obviously going through a bad patch. That’s got to change sooner or later, but I hope it’s not against us.

“They’ve got good players that can hurt you. They lost 1-0 to St Albans on Saturday but that doesn’t mean anything.”

Dartford are then in FA Trophy fifth round action at step 3 side Needham Market. But, with notable scalps on their way to the last 16 of the competition, King knows it’s another difficult match ahead.

“Of course, we’d love to get to the quarter-finals but there’s a big hurdle in the way,” warned King.

“We’ve watched them and they’ve got good players, it’s going to be a tough game.

“Any side that beats Margate, Wealdstone and Yeovil have got to have something about them. That’s not luck. You can get lucky in one game, you can’t in three games.

"That’s going to be a tough game for us.”

King was delighted that new loan signing Marcus Dinanga scored twice against Welling.

He added: “He's a centre-forward that wants to play down the middle. He gave us good balance against Ebbsfleet and helped us out as they go down the right a lot and he did a job for us.

“He was down the middle against Welling where I want to see him and he scored two goals, I can’t ask for any more than that.

"I knew he’d scored goals, I’ve seen him and he improves the team.”