'Disjointed week' hits Horsham FC as Worthing FC and Lancing FC inflict pre-season defeats

​The Hornets suffered back-to-back pre-season home defeats to National League South Worthing and Isthmian South East Lancing this week.

The Mackerel Men inflicted Horsham’s first loss of the summer on Saturday with a 3-0 win. The Hornets suffered a 3-1 defeat to the Lancers on Tuesday evening.

Di Paola admitted the performance against Lancing ‘wasn’t brilliant’ but said injuries didn’t help Horsham’s cause.

He said: “Lew Carey pulled out injured in the warm-up. He’s not been right since the Dorking game, so we had young Alf in goal - a 16-year-old keeper - but he did well.

“Jack Mazzone was on his way back from holiday and it took him seven hours to get back, so we had to start Sham [Fenelon] and take him off. [Charlie] Hester-Cook pulled out injured during the game, so there were a few things.

“The performance wasn’t brilliant. In the second half we were okay. Lancing played well, but we didn’t get up to speed quick enough.

“The past week has been a bit disjointed. Saturday against Worthing we had players missing because we picked up a few injuries at Dorking. They’re all relatively short-term, but now we’ve got to get everyone back.

“We’ve talked about not getting injuries in pre-season, but we do have a few.”

The Hornets take on Brightlingsea Regent this Saturday in their final pre-season friendly before their Isthmian Premier opener at home to Hornchurch on August 12.

Di Paola says he’s close to knowing his starting line-up against the Urchins, but admits supporters are unlikely to see his ideal Horsham starting XI this weekend.

He added: “We’re close now to knowing where we need to be with our starting XI, which is important.

“We know what team we want to put out in that game, but that may be dictated by injuries.

“Jack Mazzone has missed a lot of friendlies, so we need to get him up to speed because he’s key to what we do. It would be lovely to put out the starting XI that starts the first game, but I don’t think that’s realistically going to happen. We’ll have to muddle through that game.”