Horsham FC 'threadbare' for FA Trophy trip to Leatherhead

The Hornets travel to the Isthmian South Central leaders looking to book a place in the round of 16 for the first time in the club’s history.

But they will have to do so without a plethora of key players, who have been ruled out due to injury.

The Hornets have also bid farewell to popular midfielder Montel Agyemang and summer signing James Roberts this week, leaving Horsham desperately short of numbers.

And Di Paola revealed the Hornets have just ‘nine fit players plus the youngsters’ available for their trip to Surrey.

He said: “We’re threadbare as it is, and the challenge is to get a fit 11, 12, 13 out on the pitch. At the moment, we’ve probably got nine fit players plus the youngsters. I don’t know what to do really because we don’t have the bodies. We’re just going to have to hope one or two improve quickly.

“Greg Luer is injured, Lucas [Rodrigues] is injured, [Charlie] Hester-Cook, Lee Harding, Jake Elliott, Isaac Philpot [are all injured] – we’ve got a bit of a challenge.

“We’ve got games on Saturday and Tuesday for the next three weeks so we’ve got a lot of games with very few players.

“Cookie [Hester-Cook] and Lee Harding are probably three weeks plus [from returning], Lucas we’ve got a concern about as he’s had to have stitches in the Achilles, Isaac has got a calf strain, Leone [Gravata] has damaged his foot, so we’re definitely backs against the wall trying to piece together a squad.

“Hammo [James Hammond] has got tendonitis of the knee. He shouldn’t really be playing but he keeps playing because we need him.

“Brivs [Jack Brivio] had the flu and played at Eastbourne Borough, which was amazing, but has that made him even worse? It’s been difficult this season but we just have to keep going.”

Horsham’s budgetary limitations this season have been well-documented, with chairman Kevin Borrett announcing at the start of the campaign that a reduced playing budget would see the Hornets compete with a smaller squad.

And Di Paola admitted the club's ‘financial implications’ meant Horsham’s squad depth had been ‘grim at times’.

He said: “It’s been the biggest challenge this season, squad depth. The financial implications has meant our squad depth has been grim at times.

“We’re just hitting a period where we’re rinsing a lot of the boys to death and you’re only going to get more injuries by doing that. You can’t really swap people around as we haven’t got anyone.

“We’ve let Robbo [Roberts] go and Ricky [Aguiar] has left [to return to York City after his loan spell] which has given us the opportunity to bring in Soul [Kader] – but in order for us to bring him in we’ve had to let people go.

“At the moment, I’m being told we’ve got to get players out of the building as opposed to bringing them in, so it’s going to be very difficult to bring some bodies in.”