Upbeat Whitstable boss Jamie Coyle is looking at the positives ahead of his selection dilemma for their FA Vase match.

Coyle’s Oystermen will be at home to Lydd in the second round on Saturday.

Mid-table Southern Counties East League Premier Division side Whitstable will be without several cup-tied players, including experienced forward Dean Grant and midfielder Liam Gillies, while left-back Archie Johnson has joined higher-division Bowers & Pitsea.

Coyle said: “It’s a situation that is going to happen throughout, unless you’re replacing the players that leave with ones from higher levels, who don’t play in the FA Vase, but that’s difficult in itself.

“It’s a challenge. But I always look at the positive in it.

“We have Jayden Boulton who has almost been on dual registration at Sutton Athletic.

“He has been involved with us in the Vase and he’ll now have an opportunity to be in the squad on Saturday. He’s been doing really well at Sutton.

“It gives some younger players the chance to stake their claim - and keep the shirt. It’s a headache but it’s not just us that has got to deal with it.

“Hopefully, there will be a really big crowd at the ground. We put in a good show and a good performance on Saturday, just didn’t get the three points.

“But we hope that they come back this week and it should be a good event.”

Lydd are another team who have found themselves in a similar situation, making plenty of squad changes since Scott Porter quit as manager just before the start of the season.

“They’re struggling with the same issue,” confirmed Coyle. “They have brought in players mid-season and they have already played in the competition, and they’re cup-tied, as well.

“I think you’re going to find it is quite common, especially when you get to the latter stages of the competition. It leaves us with a real juggling act that we’re going to have to do between now and Saturday.

“We lost another player on Tuesday to a team two leagues above where Archie Johnson has now gone to Bowers & Pitsea. It seems to be a weekly process that we seem to be losing some of our better players to teams at higher levels.

“I have worked with Archie since he was 17-years-old.

“He’s still young and wants to play at the highest possible level, and he’s another player that we’re now going to have to replace. It’s a tough one.”

Whitstable head into the match after they shared the spoils from an eventful six-goal league home game against promotion-chasing Corinthian last weekend.

Grant and midfielder Josh Oliver put The Oystermen into a 2-0 lead but Oscar Housego’s controversially-awarded spot-kick at the end of the first half and a quickfire second-half double put the visitors in charge.

But Corinthian then had Mefose Esumobi red-carded and Grant levelled with 15 minutes remaining.

Coyle reflected: “For the neutral, I think it would have been one of the best games of the season. It was a really good game to watch from the side.

“We dominated the early stages of the game and took a two-goal lead, which I felt we deserved.

"They got a penalty just before half-time - which was dubious to say the least - and that knocked the stuffing out of us a little bit. We kind of got rocked a little bit.

“The game kind of continued in that vein for the first five minutes of the second half.

“But the lad, Oscar Housego, who scored their hat-trick, scored with two unbelievable strikes in the second half. One was a direct free-kick from 25 yards out that went into the top corner and one was from 25 or 30 yards out, and that went in off the inside of the post.

"I don’t think the lad will score two better goals in a season - let alone two in the same game - so fair play to him.

“So, two of the best goals I’ve seen this season happened to come within five minutes of the second half from the same player.

“Sometimes, you have got to hold your hands up to a little bit of quality that their lad showed. We found ourselves 3-2 down but we continued to do what we had done.

“We were patient and Dean Grant has been on fire recently, and he scored two really well-worked goals.”

Grant’s brace took him to four goals from five fixtures since he rejoined Whitstable.

“Him being a fit lad helps and he’s still fairly mobile,” said Coyle.

“When I’ve played against him in previous years, he has always kind of been that focal point where he’s been strong with his back to goal. But he has shown a real cutting edge in front of goal, as well, since he has been here.

“When you have got the service from Josh Oliver and Harvey Smith, you’re fairly confident that he will get a number of chances in a game.

“He has been taking them recently, so he has been a real asset to what we’re trying to do. It’s given us a different way of playing.

“We’re going to need more of that when the pitches start to turn now.”

The Oystermen will travel to Division 1 Staplehurst in the Challenge Cup on Wednesday.