More on KentOnline
More on KentOnline
Midfielder Michael Woods has been ruled out for the rest of the season by manager Andy Hessenthaler in the latest blow for Dover Athletic.
Woods is the second Whites player set to miss the remainder of their 2019/20 campaign alongside on-loan goalkeeper Ashley Maynard-Brewer who is set for a spell on the sidelines after Hessenthaler revealed on Monday he had picked up an ankle injury.
Woods played the whole game as Dover lost 3-0 to Solihull Moors but he had tests to establish the severity of his knee problem this week, and Hessenthaler confirmed the extent of the injury Woods has suffered after his play-off chasing side's 1-0 loss at home to Yeovil on Saturday.
"Michael Woods will be out for the rest of the season," said Hessenthaler.
"He has got to have an operation, like the goalkeeper we lost.
"So those things have gone against us in the last couple of weeks.
"We’ll miss Ashley, the keeper, because he was very good. But a freak accident in training, we lose him and, after the operation, I think he is actually going to be out for three months.
"Michael Woods is working on (having) an operation - perhaps this weekend.
"He’ll more than likely be out for the rest of the season after the operation on his knee.
"So we have lost Woodsy at the wrong time, as well.
"But it happens in football, people lose players, don't they? They get injured."
A second-half strike from journeyman striker Marc Richards earned Darren Sarll's side the points from their National League encounter against Dover.
After back-to-back defeats, Whites are 11th in the National League, two points behind seventh-placed Solihull Moors but the Kent club do have a game in hand on some of their rivals for a play-off place.
Reflecting on his team's loss against the Glovers, Hessenthaler said: "In the first half, there was nothing really in the game, very scrappy. It was all about the referee and the whistle.
"Second half, yeah, they were the better side.
"They bullied us to be fair, and I think they are a very strong side - very physical, get it up there to their front players - they have three players up front that are very big with the boy, (Albi) Skendi, behind and they do very well.
"It was pretty much men against boys in the second half.
"But we didn’t do what we said (about) at half-time. The opportunities we did create were when we got them turned and got in behind them.
"So, (it is) disappointing, that’s two games now that we have not been good enough (in).
"Listen, we have to take it on the chin.
"We have not been good enough perhaps at the wrong time now, but people can write us off.
"People will probably start writing us off now because we have had two bad defeats but we are two points outside the play-offs with a game in hand.
"But we know if we carry on performing like that, then we can’t even think about the play-offs.
"But no-one has died. It’s a game of football.
"We have to get on with it."
