JERSEY BULLS have signed St Brelade winger Francis Lekimamati in time for tonight’s make-or-break match at Knaphill.
Manager Gary Freeman hopes the former U18 and U21 Muratti cap (pictured below) will provide his team with much-needed width in the absence of Sol Solomon, who is out with a quad injury.
With only one win out of the last five, Bulls now sit seven points behind rivals Beckenham – making tonight’s clash a must-win if they are to resume their quest for promotion from Combined Counties Premier Division South.
Freeman, who has been talking to Lekimamati for a number of weeks about joining the squad, says the new signing will provide Bulls with a different option to what they already have.
‘He’s a player I have known for a long time and he has got himself fit and playing at a good level,’ said Freeman. ‘He’s one of those players who can play either side and is a natural wide player.’
Bulls suffered back-to-back defeats for the first time in their history last week – to league leaders Walton & Hersham and a shock 3-2 loss to struggling Banstead Athletic. Tonight’s match will be their fifth game on the road in 15 days. On top of that, they have lost three key players due to injury in Solomon, Lorne Bickley and Luke Campbell, who limped off during Saturday’s game with a muscular injury.
Nevertheless, Freeman refuses to make fatigue an excuse for their downturn in fortunes.
‘We just weren’t good enough,’ he added. ‘Teams in this league have found a way of playing against us and maybe it’s a bit of naivety on our part. We like to keep playing on the front foot and perhaps teams have got a bit cute to that, putting balls into areas that cause us problems.
‘We all recognise it’s not been right for a little while and now we’ve just got to pull together and go again.
‘The intensity when we go against teams isn’t quite there at the minute. We know we have got the quality within the group to win games. We’ve got a good group of players and that’s not changed.
‘We’ve had a little knock of confidence but the players have spoken about it more that I have about getting the basics right again, putting in the hard work and then the ability will come through at the end of it.
‘What we are seeing now is if we don’t do that then teams will cause us a problem because all of them are very physical and well organised.’
While Freeman may be able to count on one or two new signings from a limited resource of players on the Island, it is notable that other teams in the league are signing numerous new players during the season. That means Bulls are rarely playing the same team twice and the boss is expecting a different looking Knaphill to the one they beat 2-1 at Springfield in December.
‘They’ve changed a lot of personnel again,’ he said. ‘A number of players from Walton & Hersham and from Farnham have gone there after the reshuffling they’ve had, so we’ll be expecting another tough evening.’
Jersey Bulls (TBC): Euan van der Vliet, Jonny Le Quense
