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All eyes will be on Deal’s reaction after their Kent Senior Trophy Final heartbreak.
That’s the verdict of manager Steve King, as they visit newly-crowned champions Erith & Belvedere tonight and aim to keep their own hopes of a top-two Southern Counties East Premier Division finish alive.
Maximum points from their last two league matches could yet still see Deal earn the runners-up position and a shot at promotion to the Isthmian League through the play-offs.
After their 6-0 thrashing by Punjab United in Sunday’s Final, King said: “We’ve just had a long chat in there.
"Everyone is going to be watching us, aren’t they?
“No one in the world would have expected that result so everyone is going to be watching our reaction. We just said to the boys that our job is to go and get six points.
“We’ve got to try and win at Erith & Belvedere, and then we’ve got to try and win at home to Sutton [this weekend]. If we get 80 points, then we’ve had an unbelievable season.
"That’s all we can do now.
“I trust those players in that dressing room. We weren’t at our best on Sunday but the way I work is we stick with squads, we stick with people and we just owe a massive apology to everyone who travelled.
“It wasn’t for a lack of effort or a lack of trying.
"It just didn’t go for us.”
More than 1,000 Deal fans headed to Maidstone’s Gallagher Stadium for the Trophy Final - only to see them concede four first-half goals.
On the club’s support this season, King said: “We’ve had an unbelievable level of support.
“The biggest disappointment of Sunday is we’ve let them all down.
"Fair play, they were still clapping us off at the end - I’m not sure we deserved it, based on our performance.
“Obviously, we’ve had brilliant support all season. We’re averaging more than 400 and have had a couple of crowds of more than 700.
"We’re thankful to every single person that turned up on Sunday, we’re really sorry we didn’t show what we were about.
“Cup Finals bring your mates out, they bring your mate’s mates out, like all the boys I work with came along and stuff like that.
“I’m just disappointed we didn’t show the people who don’t watch us regularly what we’re about because it was very un-Deal Town-like.
“I can’t change it now. But I know the next games [we] will be back to ourselves and all we can do is use Sunday as a motivation, moving forward, because the boys are hurting.”
Capping off a miserable afternoon, with the Hoops already 5-0 down, defender Alex Green was sent off.
“Greeny will come back stronger,” insisted King, who will still have the 19-year-old centre-back available for their season run-in but he’ll miss their promotion play-off encounter if they qualify for one.
“He’s a good lad. He’s got my full backing and he’s been brilliant for us, as has Alfie Foster.
"They’ll come back stronger.”
Midfielder Jack Hanson came off at half-time due to a back injury, although that was more of a precaution.
King explained: “He landed heavily on his back, he more just stiffened up.
“This isn’t being disrespectful to anybody but, at 4-0, the game was gone and we had to have half an eye on Wednesday at that point.
"That’s not being disrespectful to the Trophy or Punjab, who were absolutely unbelievable.
“We were desperate to win it, but we didn’t bring Joe Reeves on in the end because he had a bit of a niggle.
"He was going to be a big impact player for us but we had to keep half an eye on Wednesday - the same with Jack.
“We got Macauley Murray some minutes.
"He hasn’t played many minutes in the last three or four months, so we got as prepped as we could for Wednesday with those decisions.”
Away from their Final loss, and their FA Vase exit at Corsham, Deal haven’t lost in the league since they were beaten 4-3 at Welling Town in their first fixture of 2023.
