US Portsmouth to field debutant goalkeeper against side with best goalscoring record in top nine tiers of English football

Gosport Borough youth coach George Davis appeared in goal for USP during Tuesday’s 3-1 friendly defeat on an artificial surface at Alton.

With Charlie Shepherd unavailable, he now prepares to make his competitive debut for the club against Wessex League Premier table-toppers Bemerton Heath at the Victory Stadium this weekend.

Davis has been training with USP for a few weeks and was introduced to the club by coach Mark Ayre, who is also part of the Gosport youth set-up.

Formerly with the University of Portsmouth, Davis is also a coach at the Chelsea academy.

Salisbury-based Bemerton have belted 51 goals in only 12 league fixtures this season, after coming up as Wessex 1 champions.

The only club in the top nine tiers who have scored more league goals are Bishop Auckland, but their 52 goals have come in six extra Northern League matches at the same step 5 level.

Bridgwater Town have also scored 51 times in the Western League top flight, but have played five more games than Bemerton.

Heath’s 6-0 thrashing of Alresford last weekend was the seventh time in 12 league outings they had scored four or more times.

The only time they have scored fewer than three in a game was in their 2-1 defeat at AFC Portchester last month.

Reece Rusher leads the Bemerton Wessex goal chart with 13 in 11 matches - only Portchester’s Brett Pitman (14) has scored more Premier goals in 2022/23 - with Dan Young (7), Ronan Clancy (6) and Kane O’Keefe (5) next.

In contrast, USP have picked up only one point from seven home games so far this season and are fourth from bottom.

As well as a debutant goalkeeper, they will also be without striker Simon Woods who came off in last weekend’s 3-0 loss at Christchurch with a knee injury. He could well be absent for a month.

Bradey Norton remains sidelined with a hamstring problem while midfielder Cameron Quirke is available.

‘We will need to be at our very best to compete,’ said USP boss Fraser Quirke. ‘We’ll need to frustrate them and look to catch them on the counter - counter attacking is one of our strengths.

‘We have players out but that gives others an opportunity to seize their chance and grab the shirt with both hands.’

Midfielder Vinny McGee was on target in the friendly at former Wessex League rivals Alton, who had approached USP last week about the fixture.

‘It served its purpose,’ said Quirke. ‘Two of the goals could be attributed to individual errors. That’s what we’ve talked about as a group - can we try and eliminate these sloppy, careless errors?’

Bemerton are currently leading the Wessex Premier on goal difference from Portchester, who have a game in hand.

Horndean would have joined them in a three-way tie at the top if they had beaten Fareham on Tuesday. As it was, that game was postponed.

Portchester trek to Portland United this weekend while the Deans have an attractive home game with AFC Stoneham.

Stoneham have risen to fourth despite only playing two of their 10 league games at home so far. Still, that is two more than Moneyfields have managed!