Havant Boss King Determined Despite Hawks' 'Painful Ride'

The Hawks have won just one game all season - incredibly against National League South leaders Yeovil Town.

The club have lost eight of their last ten league games and even experienced manager King has been unable to turn the tide so far.

He maintains it would always take time - and hopes the signings of strikers Ryan Seagar and Kieran Phillips can help get the much needed win which could spark their nightmare season into life.

King says he didn’t expect to beat Worthing last night as they slipped to a 3-0 defeat.

But the Havant boss knows if they are to start their climb, then they need to start picking up some wins and fast.

“Sometimes as a manager, you don’t like doing it, but you have to hold your hands up,” he said. “Worthing are miles ahead of us. So it’s no disgrace, but two of their three goals are mistakes.

“As a team we’re nowhere near them. They’ve been together a number of years and they play some fantastic football.

“I wasn’t too harsh on the players, sometimes teams are just too good for you. We are evolving and we’re nowhere near where we want to be. We’re building a team midway through the season and that’s the toughest thing you can ever do in football.

“We’ve had to get a whole new load of players to get ourselves near being able to get out of this situation.”

He told the club’s video service: “I’m not silly, I can see what’s going on and I can see what is happening. It’s tough and it becomes tougher when you’re losing games.

“We’ve now got two proper forwards into the building but we’re short in other places. We can’t keep conceding the number of goals we are and something has to change. We need to get it right and this group is nowhere near a ‘team’. You need a team to win matches.

“I knew weeks ago that it was going to be a painful ride. There’s going to be a lot more pain before we come out the other side.”

PHOTO DAVE HAINES