Steve King believes the plight of Deal’s weekend visitors shows how well his side have done this season.

The Hoops will be at home to Steyning Town Community this Saturday as they aim to bounce back from successive Isthmian South East defeats.

While Deal look on course to establish themselves at Step 4 after being crowned as last term’s Southern Counties East Premier Division champions, Steyning Town - the 2023/24 Southern Combination Premier Division champions - sit bottom despite a recent upturn in results.

King said: “I don’t like cliches like ‘Every game is a tough game’ but, when you’ve been promoted, every game is difficult and presents different challenges.

“Steyning haven’t had the best of seasons but they have picked up some good results of late.

"It’ll be good to have a week off before playing them because we were pretty tired come Saturday night.

“It’s a game where, if we perform to our levels, we have a good chance of winning. We’re probably five points from our safety target.

“We want to bounce back after our last couple of games and Steyning will get our respect. They won their league last season, we won ours.

“Without blowing our own trumpet, that shows how well we’ve done this season. But if it was an FA Vase game last year, we’d be saying it’s a 50-50 game.

“Hopefully, we play well and can get another three points.”

Deal even harbour slim hopes of a top-five finish, although losses at title-chasing Ramsgate on New Year’s Day and at home to fellow promotion-chasers Burgess Hill last weekend dealt them a blow.

“It’s been a tough week but it’s probably expected,” said King. “We were disappointed with Saturday. We looked a bit leggy.

“We didn’t play with the energy we generally do - and Burgess Hill were very strong, and they punished us.

“It was probably one of the few games where we weren’t able to lay a glove on them and they won quite comfortably.

“I’m not saying Burgess Hill will win the league but, obviously that was the first time we’ve played them, and they’ll be close.

“I think the top four in Ramsgate, Sittingbourne, Burgess Hill and Margate are quite a bit better than the rest of the division. They’re Isthmian Premier sides, really.

“For the two of the four that do go up, I’d expect them to do well next season.”

Nevertheless, the Hoops stuck to their attacking principles in both games and caused Burgess Hill’s defence problems during the 5-3 defeat in front of a crowd of 446 at the Charles Sports Ground, even if the strikes from substitutes Archie Hatcher and Morgan Page came late on.

Deal defender Alfie Foster had briefly made it 2-1 early in the second period before the Hillians took control.

King said: “We did the same at Ramsgate.

"Obviously, we lost 3-0 but I thought, in the first half, we probably shaded it. We had three or four chances on the counter-attack.

“We kept going until the end on Saturday and got three goals. But Burgess Hill controlled the game and there wasn’t really a period where we looked like we were going to get a result.

"At Ramsgate, even though we were 1-0 down at half-time, we were still in it.

“Saturday was probably just a game too far for us.”