The Rocks went into the game unable to call upon injured players such as Craig Robson, Lucas Pattenden, Ben Anderson and Tommy Block — and Harvey Whyte suffered a knock in this game that will put into doubt his availabilty for the next game on Tuesday when the Nye Camp outfit go to Steyning in the Sussex Senior Cup.
The loss leaves Robbie Blake’s side in 17th place in the league standings denying them the result they craved after the morale-boosting win last week over Cray Wanderers at Nyewood Lane.
The visitors fell behind when Ibrahim Jalloh struck on 41 minutes and the hosts went in at the interval with a 1-0 advantage. And it was Jalloh who doubled the home side’s lead when he made it 2-0 after 58 minutes.
Moses Emmanuel made it 3-0 from the spot after 79 minutes to compound Bognor’s misery and with five minutes remaining Harrison Day made it 4-0 to condemn the Rocks to a heavy loss on the road in front of 1,005 fans. The win moved Ricay up to second in the table behind leaders Lewes.
Blake pulled no punches after the match as he spoke to Peter Kelly-Sullivan of Rocks Radio.
He said: “It was really difficult. If I am being brutally honest, there were levels to their team and not to our team. They have a strong squad of players and I think they will be in the top three come the end of the season.
“We were too easy to play against, not aggressive enough or strong enough in the box and we had a lack of quality in certain areas. We are in a crossover period and we are trying to find out if the players we have brought in are good enough and that’s the hardest part. We haven’t got a magic wand that we can just bring these players that just make us click all of a sudden — and we haven’t got the financial resources to just go and bring people in.
“The bottom line is that before the start of the season when you looked at our squad you thought we have got a good squad of players; we could get better in certain areas but within one week it’s compounded with injures. We are going to have some difficult days and we are going to have some lighter days. The process has changed a little bit from what we had and what we have got now through no fault of anyone’s — those are the cards you are dealt sometimes.
“It’s difficult but we have got to keep rolling our sleeves up and try to get better; working hard on the training pitch with the players we have and if some come back from injury, great. In the dressing room you look round and see all the plyers we are missing; it’s not an excuse, the best team won by a mile.”
Bognor Regis Town: 1 Ryan Hall, 2 Harvey Whyte (Delwin Duah 24), 3 Spencer Spurway, 4 Calvin Davies (C) L, 5 Essa Janneh 6 Tyler Edmondson, 7 Jasper Mather (Rocco Gamblin 70′), 8 Matt Burgess, 9 Callum Barlow (Dan Gifford 58′), 10 Tommy-Lee Higgs, 11 Haydon Vaughan Subs: 12 Dan Gifford, 14 Rocco Gamblin, 15 Delwin Duah.
