Chris Kinnear admits Dover Athletic must learn to break down teams who ‘park the bus’ at Crabble, to reignite their Skrill South promotion-push and keep their FA Trophy run alive.

Whites suffered a fourth defeat in six home league games as leaders Bromley frustrated them for long spells on Tuesday. They stay 14th – though only seven points outside the play-off places with games in hand on their rivals.

Whites will welcome Skrill North side Leamington in the FA Trophy second round on Saturday, knowing victory would take them just three wins from Wembley, while promotion-rivals Eastleigh visit Crabble in Skrill South on Tuesday (7.45pm). Kinnear expects both teams to attempt to frustrate the hosts.

He said: “People come here and sit back and it’s going to happen again on Saturday and Tuesday. When teams have come here and done it and it’s worked for them then why wouldn’t other teams do it? It’s up to us to cope with it.

“If you can get an early goal then they have to change and it brings them out a bit more, which makes it easier for you. Of course if they score first then they are going to drop deeper and deeper. Even MK Dons did that against us on Saturday.

“We have to realise, it’s a big game for teams, coming to somewhere like Dover, people are going to do it to you.”

Dover have scored just two goals in the last six league games at home and Kinnear admitted: “Obviously we haven’t scored enough goals at home and we need to score more.

“However people are quick to look at the negatives and make an issue of it, but we scored four at Chelmsford in our previous league game and four at Eastbourne two games before that.
“Bromley was our third defeat in 16 games. I think people have short memories."

Tom Wynter and Liam Bellamy will be assessed after illness, while Lee Sawyer serves the final game of his three-match suspension, against Leamington.