Pinchbeck United are facing something of a selection dilemma ahead of Saturday’s clash with Rushden and Higham United.
The Knights are without key men Andrew Tidswell, Ollie Maltby, Tyler Wright and keeper Ben Martin for the ChromaSport UCL Division One clash at the Sir Halley Stewart Playing Field (3pm).
With fellow keeper Ricky Lovelace unavailable, player/boss Dunn may be forced to dip into the transfer market to bring in an emergency number one.
Despite this weekend’s absentees, Dunn does have a strong squad at his disposal, but admits that his Pinchbeck side need to bounce back from last weekend’s 2-1 defeat at Buckingham Town (see page 37) with a win.
He feels the Knights – now fourth – should have 12 points from their five games, making their haul of eight a “disappointing” return so far.
Dunn said: “I’m not expecting Rushden to be too different from the other sides we’ve faced so far – barring Lutterworth Town, who have been the stand-out side. It should be much of a muchness from the games we’ve had against the likes of Bourne Town and Long Buckby.
“Our result on Saturday surprised me, I thought we should have got the points.
“That’s been a common theme though, we should have won more games than we have done.
“We’ve got to improve. In my mind we’ve dropped five points already, which isn’t ideal after five games.
“It’s all down to scoring goals, we’ve just not been taking our chances.
“And I can’t even say we need to go out and get a striker, I’m happy with our options and the players the chances are falling to are the right ones.
“We just need to develop a ruthless streak, the missed chances and dropped points are disappointing.”
While Pinchbeck were slipping to a defeat, Saturday’s opponents Rushden and Higham grabbed their first win of the new season.
They defeated Stewarts and Lloyds AFC 3-1 at Hayden Road, but were beaten by early pace-setters Blackstones the previous weekend.
