DYLAN Knight’s promising introduction against Winchester City in the Red Insure Cup has earned him a place in AFC Totton’s squad for Saturday's league trip to Wantage Town.

With loanee Tony Lee now back with Eastleigh, Craig Feeney in Australia and Mark Lilley still struggling with groin problems, Knight has been called back into the Totton fold after making 14 starts for Wessex outfit Fawley AFC.

The powerful, young forward marked his debut as a first-half sub with a goal on Tuesday, albeit that Totton bowed out of the League Cup 5-2 to their high-riding Southern One South & West rivals.

Totton boss Steve Hollick explained: “We had Dylan with us in pre-season and took the decision to go with the four strikers already in the club.

“He returned to Fawley to get some games, but we needed someone to help out Nathaniel Sherborne so we brought him back, gave him his chance against Winchester and he took it well.

“Bearing in mind he was up against two strong centre-halves in Jamie Thoroughgood and Flooksy (former Totton man Rob Flooks), Dylan gave a good account of himself.

“Jack Alexander also played well in the middle of the park and the plus point for Jack is that Saturday is a home game for him because he lives in Wantage.”

The loss of goal ace Lee, who netted two hat-tricks during his short stay with Totton, comes as a crushing blow.

“I thought we’d finally solved our striker problem but now we’ve got to start looking again,” said Hollick.

“It’s quite a challenge to find a player with the right talent ID who fits in with our budget requirements.”

The Wessex League is the obvious place to start but, as bottom-five trio Totton, Bashley and Wimborne are finding, many of the area’s better players are happy to stay local.

“Somehow we’ve got to convince guys on relatively good money to do a load more travelling in a more physical league and go out and score goals,” said Hollick.

“It will always revolve around money and some of these lads are quite happy to leave home at 1am and get back at 6pm from a Wessex game as opposed to travelling a couple of hours each way in the Southern League.”

Wantage are also finding it tough going in the South & West. The Alfredians are three points behind 18th-placed Totton having played one game more.