Team News: Walton & Hersham (A)

David Ogbonna and Junior Eccleston are set to begin their respective bans starting this Saturday, having both seen red last week against Shrewsbury Town.

The former was shown a second yellow card in the fourth minute of stoppage time after preventing John Marquis from taking a free kick quickly, having originally been harshly booked within the first 15 minutes, and will serve a one-match ban as a result.

As for Eccleston, the young defender was controversially sent for an early bath in the first half of Extra Time after getting into a tangle with Chuks Aneke, with the referee somehow deeming him to have caught the Salop man with his elbow despite both players taking a tumble in their respective attempts to win a header from a throw-in.

Much to the understandable bemusement of the 18-year old, Eccleston will now serve a three-game suspension which will keep him out until the final game of 2025, covering the clashes with Walton & Hersham, Solihull Moors and Aldershot Town.

“Junior’s been outrageously good and David Ogbonna is getting better and better so they’re really big losses.”

“The fact that we’re coming into this game with two big parts of our team being unavailable – but we’re not too stressed by it – is the fact that we’ve obviously played some strong teams in the Surrey Senior Cup and the National League Cup.”

“If we’d handed those games over to the academy for example; it certainly would have had its benefits but equally we’d be sitting here with potential replacements for Junior and Obi having not played much football of late, whereas we’re going into it with a first team squad full of players that have recently got 90, 180 minutes in the bank”

“We’re disappointed to lose them and they’re going to be a loss but equally it’s an opportunity for others members of the squad to grab the shirt and if they play well and perform well then they’ll keep the shirt and it’ll be up to Junior and Obi to get back into the side.”

Chris Agutter is also set to go into tomorrow’s match light up front, with Brandon Njoku’s and Ashley Nadesan’s fitness remaining up in the air.

The former failed a fitness test prior to the clash with Shrewsbury and meant the latter played 66 minutes despite not being at 100%, before being replaced by Kane Crichlow, who has struggled with a virus recently, with the Head Coach describing it as a frustrating ongoing issue to contend with over the last couple of weeks.

“We’ve not played with a recognised centre forward – in terms of a fully fit centre forward”

“We go into the game light in that department, but equally it’s a challenge for us to be adaptable and come up with a slightly different way of playing, which we can certainly do; we did it against Croydon in the [Surrey] Senior Cup so it’s an opportunity for us as staff to be adaptable and flexible and maybe pose Walton a different type of problem to perhaps what they’ve prepared for.”

He also provided an update on Alex Woodyard, saying that the Aldershot Town match on Boxing Day is the target for the experienced midfielder to return to action, having seen a reoccurrence of the knee injury he picked up back in August.