Three points will be top of the agenda for Havant & Waterlooville and Chelmsford City at Westleigh Park this Saturday.
Both clubs are looking to enhance their Blue Square South play-off aspirations in very different ways on the last regulation date of the 2009/10 campaign.
The Clarets seek to at least match Dover Athletic’s result at home to Staines Town elsewhere in order to finish above them in second, while Havant undoubtedly require a win just to stand a chance of sneaking fifth place ahead of any two of Bath City, Braintree Town and Woking. However, with a play-off place already in the bag, Chelmsford are still in no position to take their final game lightly.
“There’s not a lot of choices for me to make,” said Head Coach Glenn Pennyfather of his injury-affected squad. “We don’t have the luxury of being able to rest players or take them out of the fray because we have injuries in key areas and, again, the team is tending to pick itself. The advantage is we will have hungry players who, at the current time, are in charge of the shirt and I’ve always said if you’re playing well you keep your place.”
Pennyfather described the injury scenario as “a real pain” ahead of the match where he will probably be without captain and central midfielder Dave Rainford and defenders Ben Martin, Steven Clark and Mark Haines, alhough he admits to being relieved that a play-off place had been sewn-up before the worst of the injuries hit the squad.
He added: “I’ve got no preference who we face - we’re there and that’s all we’re pleased about. Firstly we’ve got to get a result on Saturday to finish as high as we can. The lowest we can finish is third, which would be an improvement of two positions on last season, but I’ve said all year that I want us to finish as high as possible. That would give us maximum advantage if we were lucky enough to make the final.”
