DAVE Herbert says his Folland Sports players owe it to the club to finish the season strongly - even though there is no escaping the Sydenhams Premier Division’s bottom two.

Backmarkers Follands’ unlucky 1-0 defeat at Sholing on Saturday means there is no way of catching third-to-bottom Fawley AFC in the battle to avoid the drop.

Herbert, though, is not giving up hope of a reprieve and has set his sights on overhauling 20th-placed Alresford, whose relegation spot was also cemented with a 5-2 home defeat by Blackfield & Langley.

While adamant that the Planemakers should “not in a million years” have lost at Sholing, Herbert still feels some players have let him and the club down in recent weeks.

“Over the last ten games we’ve had lads not available to play,” he said.

“They owe it to the club – and to me – now to make themselves available for the last three games and earn us a bit of self-respect.

“We’re going to concentrate on not finishing bottom.”

A 35th-minute Zach Glasspool header edged Sholing to victory on Saturday.

In the absence of manager Dave Diaper, Stu Hussey took charge of the Boatmen on a day when local MP Royston Smith visited the Silverlake Arena.

Follands’ Spanish midfielder Javi Santafe-Vivo went close to breaking the deadlock when he send a thunderous 35-yard effort looping over Ryan Gosney, but the Sholing keeper – a good friend of Herbert’s – acrobatically clawed it over.

The Boatmen scored when Barry Mason clipped the ball into the area for ex-Winchester City man Glasspool to nod home his first Sholing goal.

The closest Follands came to levelling was right at the death when ex-Planemaker Gosney parried a fierce strike from Tony Wilkinson who had been picked out by Santafe-Vivo.

“We had a couple of Matt Andrews goals disallowed, but it was one of those games where we could have had the ball in the net ten times and they’d all have been disallowed,” said Herbert.

“Ryan Gosney, one of my best mates, didn’t do us any favours either. He pulled off some absolute worldies.”

Despite the disappointment of finishing bottom-two, Herbert plans to stay on next season.

“We’ve talked about bringing in six or seven quality Wessex players,” he said. “If we go down, we’ll be looking to win the league and come straight back up. But if we can find an escape route, we’ll have a side that can compete in the Premier.”

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