Deal Town are facing a top-of-the-table team in the FA Vase second round this Saturday.

Weekend visitors Littlehampton head to the Charles Ground sitting at the summit of the Southern Combination Premier Division.

Hoops boss Derek Hares is expecting a tough tie but Littlehampton suffered an away defeat on Saturday and he knows there will be opportunities. His own side will be hoping to bounce back from a 2-1 loss to Hollands & Blair in the Southern Counties East League.

Hares, who expects to have a fully-fit squad this Saturday, said: “It is a big game coming up, it is the FA Vase and that always creates a bit of excitement around the club.

“It is always nice if you can stay involved until after Christmas when it goes national and it creates a lot of excitement.

“They are going well in their league, top, but lost on Saturday. We lost as well so you can’t read much into that! They have scored a lot of goals and they have conceded quite a few as well.

“We are expecting a difficult game but I am confident that if we can be at our best they will find it difficult to beat us.”

Hares didn’t see a lot wrong with his side’s performance against Hollands & Blair on Saturday as they were beaten on home turf.

Max Niblett scored a late consolation for the Hoops after conceding two quickfire goals just past the hour mark against the visitors from Gillingham, who had their new manager Scott Porter watching from the stand.

Hares said: “I didn’t think it was a terrible performance and at the end of the day what stopped us winning was missed chances and a very good goalkeeping display.

“He made some terrific saves and everything we hit he got in the way of. I felt we needed a goal and it didn’t come, and when it did come it was too late.

“They are a hard-working, physical side, take nothing away from them, they probably edged the first half and we were certainly a lot better in the second half.

“We created chances, we weren’t probably at our best, it was just the fact the goals didn’t go in.

“We have got a good side, we did a lot of good stuff on Saturday. The disappointing thing is we didn’t finish it off whereas other weeks we have.”