Not finished yet: Bognor Regis Town FC bosses say squad needs to be stronger

Howell and Michael Birmingham will redouble their recruitment efforts after being forced to call off Tuesday's pre-season friendly at Weymouth because of injuries and the unavailability of players.

Bognor go to Chichester City tomorrow (Friday Aug 1) to complete their summer games but it is the clash with the newly-promoted Royals on which the management team are focusing.

They hope to have keeper Mac Chisholm available again after he was taken off through injury in the 4-1 reverse at Wimborne Town last Saturday, a game that saw Tommy Block pick up a knee injury.

Dan Gifford and Sam Hookey were also missing with knocks and new left back Matt Jones was unavailable.

It meant the Rocks had to rely on youngsters to a degree and the display and subsequent defeat demonstrated that the Nyewood Lane outfit are a little bit short of numbers ahead of the curtain-raiser in Hampshire.

Howell said: "I can understand the frustrations of not being able to play at Weymouth, it's a shame. But we are running with a very small squad this year because of the (new incoming 3G) pitch and budgets.

"The idea that we go down to Weymouth with a weaker team and pick up more injuries to senior players because they are trying to cover for younger players, doesn't make the best sense for us in preparation for Portchester a week on Saturday. We had to make that decision and we can only apologise.

"We know who we are working on (to bring in) and we have got time to get ready for that game and if we win there and then at Littlehampton and get positive results then it's all blue skies. Me and Birmy are experienced managers and we have been in this situation many times before and I am not worried. We know what we need and we are working very hard to get there.

“We know what is happening behind the scenes and we are not privy to share that information all the time because we don't like to do that until deals are done -- we know we need to add players and that is what we intend to do and there is no reason why we can't have a very successful season."

Howell added that the managers were left disappointed after their Rocks side suffered a first pre-season defeat at Wimborne.

He said: “It was a disappointing result; the injury to our keeper certainly didn’t help. I didn’t think we were great and maybe we put a lot of pressure on the younger players (by playing them). But it is more minutes in the bank.”

It didn't help that the visitors lost Chisholm just before the break, with Bognor opting to put flying winger Lennie Smith, 17, in goal after the break.

But Smith -- who has played between the sticks on occasion for the U18s -- performed well against the well-drilled Southern League Premier South outfit and even managed to save a penalty kick in the second half.

Wimborne took the lead on 29 minutes through and doubled their lead ten minutes later thanks to Lewis Williams' strike. Then Simba Mlambo somehow squeezed his effort home from the left and pulled the visitors back to 2-1 on 47 minutes

Joe Smith added two more goals in a second half the home side dominated to hand the hosts a comfortable win at the Wyatt Homes Stadium in front of 346 fans.