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Dover Athletic defender Jack Parkinson insists club can beat their highest Vanarama National League finish despite poor away results

Defender Jack Parkinson insists ‘the wheels are not falling off’ at Dover and he remains confident they can finish higher than the club have ever done before.

For the second straight Saturday Whites fans endured a miserable journey back to Kent as a 4-2 defeat at Gateshead on Saturday followed a 5-0 reverse at Chester seven days earlier.

Jack Parkinson. Picture: Jim Roberts
Jack Parkinson. Picture: Jim Roberts

Parkinson insisted the fact that goalkeepers Steve Arnold and Mitch Walker sustained injuries during both defeats, but were forced to continue with no back-up on the bench, contributed to the heavy defeats.

Only four sides have let in more than the 26 goals Dover have conceded in 15 games, three of them in the bottom five, but bullish Parkinson insisted: “The wheels are not falling off.

“We’re under no illusions that it’s not been good enough, but every team goes through periods like this in a season, this is just ours.

“We have strong enough characters in that dressing room to get us through it. We don’t like losing, but I think if we’d lost 1-0 at Chester and Gateshead then people would not be worrying so much.”

After the Chester defeat, Dover did respond to beat Sutton three days later and Parkinson hopes they can do the same again when they visit Burgess Hill Town in their opening FA Cup game of the season on Saturday (3pm).

He said: “We bounced back to win on Tuesday and I am sure we’ll do it again on Saturday.

“You can’t play a game without a keeper and we’ve almost ended up doing that in two games.

“We need to cut out silly mistakes of course, but nobody is ready to explode, we’ll be fine, there is nothing to worry about, there is no arguing within the squad.”

Dover sit ninth but still just three points off a play-off place in Vanarama National League and Parkinson claimed: “It’s a tough league, everyone can beat everyone else.

“We are still a point better off than we were at this point last season and though it will be tough to improve on fifth, especially losing the players that we did, we’re certainly capable of doing it.

“We’ve beaten Forest Green, Lincoln and Eastleigh already and when we get it together we’ll be alright.”

With a small section of fans on social media questioning boss Chris Kinnear’s future, Parkinson added: “Every year the gaffer has been here they have seen improvement – a cup final, an FA Cup third round, promotions, play-offs.

“To be questioning the manager is a bit drastic.”

Sam Magri is set to return after eye-catching turns at centre-back for Malta under-21s in two UEFA qualifying wins this week.

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