Dover Athletic manager Andy Hessenthaler looking for nine points out of nine by winning at Bromley
Published: 06:00, 31 December 2019
Dover Athletic boss Andy Hessenthaler is hoping to round off an “unbelievable” run of results by winning at Bromley on New Year’s Day.
Whites have got their National League play-off bid back on track with back-to-back league wins over the Christmas period.
Now Hessenthaler is targeting nine points out of nine as they look to complete the double over Neil Smith’s Bromley having run out comfortable 3-0 winners at Crabble on Boxing Day.
“It makes it harder for us having just beaten them but with the belief we’ve got in the dressing room from the last two games there’s no reason why we can’t go there and get a result,” said Hessenthaler.
“It would be unbelievable. We’ve got a 10-day break before we play Hartlepool as we don’t play on January 4.
“If we can get a win it would be a phenomenal period for us and we can enjoy ourselves and have a few days off.
“It’s going to be hard. They’re on their own patch on 3G which we’re not used to. But the one thing we’ve got in our favour is how well we do away from home.
“They’ll be nervous but they won against Dagenham (3-0) on Saturday. They’ll want to turn around that result on Boxing Day so it’s not going to be easy.
“We’re excited for Wednesday because they’ll know how good we are on our travels.
“We’ve been to Chesterfield, Hartlepool, Harrogate and Barnet – so we’re not too worried about going to Bromley.
“They’ve got every chance to get promoted this year as they are an excellent team but we’ll be going there to upset them again.”
Dover sit just two points outside the play-off places but do not play after New Year’s Day until they host Hartlepool on Saturday, January 11.
The scheduled trip to Barrow on January 7 has been postponed due to their hosts’ involvement in the FA Trophy.
“We’ve got 20 games left, we’re two points off the play-offs but we’re not getting too excited because there’s a long way to go,” added Hessenthaler.
“We put a statement out that we want to get in the play-offs this year.
“We’ve got the same budget that we had last year and they were part-time. The budget hasn’t changed.
“Have we got a top-seven budget? No, we haven’t, the chairman will tell you that. But we still believe we can get into that top seven.
“This league gets harder every year. We’ve only just gone full-time but we expect to do well because that’s our dressing room.”
Keeper Lee Worgan (concussion) misses out again while Paul Rooney and Oscar Gobern were absent at Ebbsfleet due to injury.
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Matthew Panting