Manager Steve King has hinted he will rotate Deal’s squad ahead of playing two matches in the space of three days.

The Hoops visit fellow early high-fliers Rusthall this Saturday before travelling to K Sports on Monday.

Deal had a similarly quick turnaround over the August Bank Holiday weekend, on which they progressed in the FA Vase - only to lose 1-0 at Kennington in the Southern Counties East Premier Division two days later.

King said: “We are thinking about that this week. We probably got it wrong at Kennington when we went Saturday-Monday. We didn’t make a lot of changes.

“In hindsight, that’s something we maybe should have looked at.

“I’m a fan of keeping combinations but, with two games in 48 hours, I would imagine there will be some rotation.”

It will be a testing period for Deal which starts away to Jimmy Anderson’s Rusthall who have collected 10 points from five league games, and sit fourth, just two points behind third-placed Deal.

King added: “We have got Rusthall and then K Sports on Monday so two away games in three days. Rusthall have had a brilliant start to the season.

“Jimmy has done a great job.

"At the start of the season, some people maybe would have expected us to win there but now - I’m not saying we are underdogs - but it will be a good test. We are looking forward to it.”

The Hoops returned to winning ways last Saturday as they came from behind to beat 10-man Lordswood 4-1. That result leaves King’s team in the upper echelons of the table having finished fourth last term.

On their start, King said: “I’m very pleased. Obviously, we have won four out of five in the league.

“We are through in the [FA] Vase. We were disappointed to lose to Three Bridges in the FA Cup but we had a good win against Egham prior to that.

“We have carried on the momentum from last season. But it’s going to take around 10 games before the league takes shape.

“If we can win another four out of five, that will be good. It’s a nice start but we will not be getting carried away.”

At the Charles Sports Ground, visitors Lords led before Riley Alford equalised and three late goals in 12 minutes earned Deal the win.

King reflected: “It was a very good second-half performance. To be fair to Lordswood, they are a good side and caused us problems in the first half. But from our point of view, I was a little bit disappointed with the goal we conceded.

“Obviously there was a sending-off and that aided us, but we were outstanding, second half. I think we would have won against 11.

“We controlled the game against 10 and it was a big three points in the end.”

Deal’s goals were shared around between Alford, Aaron Millbank, Connor Coyne and Ben Chapman.

“We’ve worked on creating different ways to score,” King said. “We want different options.

“Nobody is going to turn down a 40-goal-a-season striker. We have a couple that may be - they probably won’t reach 40 - but they can score a lot of goals.

“But there needs to be a balance in attack. So if one does not fire, we have different goalscorers.”