Buckland left to rue injury crisis as Horsham YMCA's squad suffers

YM fell to a 1-0 away defeat to fellow title challengers Pagham on Saturday but they were missing five members of their squad.

Buckland felt his decimated squad were severely impacted by this setback and that the loss of the core of his team was 'huge'.

He said: "If you just take Saturday we had Dave Brown injured and he's played 45 minutes this season, Luke Donaldson has been out for six weeks, Adam Hunt has come back for two cameo appearances but has suffered a setback, as well as Mark Cave and Callum Donaghey.

"Sometimes it's about the players that aren't there as opposed to the one's that are there. It's five players and when you consider you've got ten outfield players and five of them are unavailable for selection and you've got to go to Pagham it's huge."

Several players have sat on the substitute's bench without being fully fit after injury. Although they have been amongst the subs Buckland hasn't been able to call on them and the YM manager felt that the size of his squad has been a blessing in disguise.

He added: "That's why you've got a squad. I do believe in the squad but the bench is equally made up of players that have just come back.

"Luke Gedling for instance has played one competitive game since the start of the season so whilst it's a number on the bench it's not somebody I can start.

"Same for Ollie Gill. He pulled up at Arundel away in the Peter Bentley Challenge Cup and came off with his hamstring and he's still struggling.

"I look at my squad of 20 and think I've got to reduce this bit but thank God I haven't, because we need to call on all of it."