By Holly Morris

Boss Tommy Warrilow has warned his Faversham side not to take a play-off place for granted.

Despite a spirited second-half fightback after being three down at the break, the Lilywhites lost 3-2 to Lordswood in the Southern Counties East Premier Division last weekend.

With the risk of teams below closing in on a play-off spot due to their games in hand, Warrilow knows his team need to get more wins under their belt to earn a top-five finish.

He said: “It’s not a case that, because we lost on Saturday, our play-off chances are all over. It’s not over and it’s never been over.

“Even if Faversham were top, until all these teams play catch-up, you don’t know where you’re going to be.

“The most important thing is to get out of this league and if it’s not through winning the title - if that goes because we can’t catch them as the games have run out and the points aren’t there anymore - then we aim to fight in the play-offs.

“I’ve said to the boys from day one, don’t take the play-offs for granted.

“No one’s talking about Bearsted, even down to Punjab who got a good result.

“When we first came in, we looked at the league table and we saw how tight it was going to be.

“Teams are putting runs together, we’ve just got to be one of those teams now.

“There’s enough games left to get a run together and we’ve just got to be positive and do that. Since we’ve been in, we haven’t, but we’ve had enough chances to win games of football and not taken them.”

Late strikes from 26-goal Stefan Payne and substitute Warren Mfula were not enough to secure points for Faversham, who had a first-half goal from Payne ruled out for offside when Lordswood led 2-0.

On the performance, the Town manager added: “We started so lethargic, three goals down which is ridiculous.

“It doesn’t take Einstein to work out you can’t start a game of football the way we did. Any game of football, you can’t do that. We just got punished.

“We came in at half-time and, obviously, a few things were said.

“In the second half we’ve gone out and, this is going to sound mad but, we should’ve still won the game.

“We created enough chances to win.”

With a potential new signing on the horizon this week, Warrilow is looking to strengthen his squad ahead of Saturday’s home fixture against strugglers Sutton Athletic.

He said: “It’s not a panic moment.

“We don’t bring players in because we lost 3-2 on Saturday.

“We’ve got to bring some players in because the squad, as we saw the week before, is a small squad and it only takes a few knocks and niggles and we’re down to the bare bones again.

“Whoever comes in, we’re looking to add some stability for the remainder of this season and obviously next season as well.

“They’re not impact players just to come in and be here for five minutes.”

Experienced defender Matt Newman was set to play against Lords - but a knee issue in the warm-up saw captain Connor Essam come in as his replacement.

On the likelihood of Newman’s return this weekend, Warrilow explained: “I’m not going to force him into playing. If it’s not right, then we’ll give him another week’s rest.

“We’ll monitor that and know more once the week goes on.”