Manager Steve King believes everyone at Deal is excited ahead of this Saturday’s FA Vase tie.

The Hoops have plenty of history in the competition, having won the Vase in 2000.

King expects they’ll be slight underdogs away to Southern Counties East League rivals Phoenix Sports - who beat Deal 3-0 earlier this season - for the Second Round tie but he’s desperate to see his troops progress.

“We are really looking forward to it,” said King. “Obviously the boys are buzzing, coming into it on the back of a win on Saturday.

“We have a free week but the boys will train Tuesday and we’ll have a social on Thursday.

“We will probably be slight underdogs after what happened in the league - and they won 6-0 as well at the weekend [at home to Hollands & Blair] - but we will all be looking forward to it.

“If you get past the Second Round, that’s when the Vase gets really exciting. One of us or Phoenix will have the excitement of Monday’s draw.

“We will give it everything to make sure it’s our name in the hat.”

It’s an exciting time for the fourth-placed Hoops, who will then return to league action, hosting leaders Erith & Belvedere the following weekend, and there’s a trip to Whitstable (December 10) not far away, either.

Despite mixed results of late, King thinks Deal’s performances have largely been good.

He said: “I’m not sitting here, saying our performances have been unbelievable. There’s room for improvement.

“But other than Phoenix away, we have had a lot of games where we have played well enough to get more points than we did.

“I certainly think our performances have been better this season but we have less points than we did at this stage last season.

“We have Erith & Belvedere and Whitstable coming up in the league.

"They are the games that excite me - we want to be involved in the Vase and, obviously, the games against the likes of Erith & Belvedere and Whitstable.”

Deal came from behind to win 3-1 at Sutton Athletic on Saturday in the league.

King reflected: “It was really pleasing, a much-needed win.

“We’d had a really difficult 10 days, to be fair. Not in terms of performances, things have just not gone our way.

“We knew we had to get a win on Saturday to keep around the top four or five places and Sutton have been right at it so to get the victory is really pleasing.”

The Chapman brothers again took centre stage, Ben’s effort sandwiched between two strikes by Tom.

King said: “I think Tom is on 14 in all competitions and Ben must be on six or seven. They did well.

“It’s good for them to put the ball in the net but it was a really good team performance.

“We lost Alfie Foster early on and Kane Smith was out with concussion, but the whole group showed good character.”

The win came after Deal were knocked out of the Challenge Cup on penalties at Lydd last Wednesday.

“I still don’t even know what happened Wednesday night to be fair,” King said.

“The match was played in the windiest conditions I have known.”

Three second-half goals from Joe Reeves, Alfie Foster and Jack Penny looked to have sent the Hoops through - only for Lydd to strike twice at the death to force the game to a shoot-out, which saw the hosts progress 5-4.

Deal are looking to bolster their ranks - but only if the right players become available.

“We are trying to bring a couple in but there’s been some changes in management higher up, that means a lot of player movement at that level,” King explained.

The winner of Deal’s tie against Phoenix will pocket £900.