Andy Hessenthaler admits bringing in a striker is his priority as his Dover side look to get their National League play-off push back on track.

A knee injury ruled Inih Effiong out of Sunday’s FA Cup defeat at Peterborough and the 10-goal top scorer looks likely to be sidelined for a couple of weeks.

With loan signing Ruel Sotiriou having returned to parent club Leyton Orient after his two-goal turn against Maidenhead last week, manager Hessenthaler’s options suddenly look thin on the ground.

Ricky Modeste, with four goals, is Dover’s next-highest scorer behind Effiong, while close-season signing Steve Rigg has just one to show for his hard-working efforts so far.

That pair were given the nod up front against Peterborough but Hessenthaler knows he needs to increase his options.

He said: “Inih could be a couple of weeks, we’ve just got to assess that one. It’s a patella tendon problem he’s got.

“He had it last year to be fair and it’s flared up again so we’ll have to monitor that.

“We could have risked it, he talked about it, he trained on Saturday but he broke down.

“He was desperate to play, to be fair to him, but I went with Ricky and Riggy.

“We wanted to play two, we did not just want to play with a one and sit off them.

“It was free hit for us, we wanted to go out and cause them problems and I thought the front two worked their socks off.

“It’s a blow we’ve lost Inih, we might have to look to bring one in.

“Obviously Ruel went back as well so we’ve lost two strikers in the space of a few days.

“It’s never easy to find good centre-forwards. Teams don’t let good players go, so if it’s anything it’s going to be perhaps a younger one like Ruel that we can perhaps get from a League club who can loan us someone for a few months and we’ll see from there.

“We’ve got to do some work on that, we’ve got to try and do something in that area definitely.”

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Whites are down to 13th in the table but only five points behind seventh-placed Harrogate with two games in hand.

Their last game at Crabble ended in a disappointing 4-3 defeat to Maidenhead and Hessenthaler says they will need to be back on their mettle for the visit of Boreham Wood on Saturday.

He said: “The boys knew the performance against Maidenhead was not good enough but they responded in the right way at Peterborough.

“Boreham Wood are a good side, they’re going well at the moment and they had a good win on Saturday (beating Woking 1-0 at home).

“That’s another real tough test for us and we’ve got to put this (the cup defeat) behind us now and get on a decent run in the league.

“We had five games unbeaten before we lost to Maidenhead so we know we’re capable of doing that.”

Lee Worgan looks set to keep his place in goal at the weekend while Hessenthaler will take checks on the fitness of Josh Passley (hamstring), Oscar Gobern (thigh) and Aaron Simpson (hamstring). All three missed the Posh tie.

Dover's postponed league match away to Barrow will now take place on Tuesday, January 7, 2020 (kick off 7.45pm).

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