‘Very tough’ Southern League Premier South trip for Gosport Borough to ‘wounded animal’ North Leigh

Andreas Robinson has yet to play for Gosport since Mark Molesley arrived as director of football. Picture by Tom Phillips

And director of football Mark Molesley is expecting a ‘very tough’ contest against a much-improved North Leigh side.

The Oxfordshire club have won their last three home league games, picking up nine points out of a possible 12 in the process.

That followed a dreadful run of just one point in 12 matches that left them firmly rooted to the bottom in their first season of seventh tier football.

Home wins over Hartley Wintney (3-1), Dorchester (2-0) and Harrow Borough (2-0) have certainly boosted confidence, though.

Boro are only two points above the four-team drop zone after successive home losses against the top two teams, Weston (0-4) and Truro (0-1).

An 11th minute Dan Sullivan goal gave the Cornish club all three points at Privett Park last weekend.

‘It’s almost as if North Leigh have had nothing to lose,’ said Molesley. ‘They’re a team who are like a wounded animal.’

In contrast, Molesley knows Boro have a lot to lose - their precious Premier South place for a start.

‘It’s been a high pressure situation since I walked in the door,’ he remarked. ‘You have to run towards the pressure, you can’t run away from it.

‘You have to try and embrace it and come up with solutions and answers.

‘We’re always confident. We went toe to toe with one of the best teams (Truro) in the league. We more than matched them.

‘If I’m being critical, we didn’t do enough with our possession. We need to be more clinical in both penalty boxes.’

Molesley is expected to select from the same squad that faced Truro, with long-term injury victim Andreas Robinson the only major absentee.

The midfielder has yet to feature since Molesley arrived in late November, and the latter has no idea when he will. ‘Robbo has been sadly missed, he’s a huge player for us,’ said Molesley.