Hall has been struggling with an ankle injury and aggravated the knock during the 2-2 draw with the Golds and Blake is waiting for an assessment on Hall’s condition as Bognor head in to a home game against Kingstonian on Saturday in the Isthmian premier division.
Goals from Lucas Pattenden and Harvey Whyte earned the Rocks a draw against Littlehampton, with the visitors grabbing their double through the impressive Ollie Starkey.
Blake says he found the friendly useful in terms of game time for fringe players and to work on a few tactual tweaks and provided an update on Hall’s progress after the stalemate. It comes after a disappointing road trip for his side as they went down 3-1 at Cheshunt last time of asking in league action.
He said: “It was a precautionary measure to take Ryan off as he has an ongoing issue with his ankle and it made total sense to allow him to sit out the second half and we put striker Jasper Mather in goal and, in fairness, he did well. We are hopeful Ryan will be fit for Saturday but we will need an update closer to kick off.”
Reflecting on the defeat at Cheshunt and the task ahead against the Ks, Blake added: “The basic aspects in trying to attain success on the pitch are creating chances, finishing them and good, solid defending. What really encourages me with the group we have here at the club is that we do the former very well indeed. What we must work on are the latter two aspects. In a nutshell, for me, this summed us up in the loss at Cheshunt.
“We created chances galore but failed to profit from them. At the same time, our defending was shoddy at best and this allowed the home side to score three very easy goals. What encourages me further is that I know we can work on defending and we can work on sharpening the skills of our forwards in front of goal. And the fact that we fashion so many cracking opportunities can be frustrating when we don’t turn them into goals.
“Kingstonian haven’t had the best of starts to their season but we won’t let that fool us. You only have to look back a couple of weeks to see Cray beat leaders Chatham 5-1 to realise that, in this league, anyone can beat anyone. That’s why I have reminded the players that we want them to go in to this game with a positive mental attitude, a focus and a willingness to get the basics right and then earn the right to express themselves.”
