Horsham FC boss Di Paola: We fell short in our Isthmian Premier play-off bid but we gave it a good go

The Hornets ran out 1-0 winners at Aveley on Saturday, but their hopes of reaching the play-offs were dashed by fifth-placed Cray Wanderers’ 2-0 home win against Kingstonian. The result left the Wands four points ahead of Horsham, in eighth, with one game to play.

Di Paola said: “From November onwards, we’ve been very good. We’ve not dropped many points, but unfortunately - and I’m like a broken record - our September where the injury crisis hit has cost us.

“To make up 13 points is just too much. It’s haunted us all season because, in general, we’ve been comfortable in terms of our form.

“I’ve been happy all season. I felt a bit frustrated with those Tuesday night away games where we didn’t get the points we needed. We only got four points out of nine.

“But apart from those, I’ve been relatively happy with the boys. I’ve been happy with how we’ve performed.

“There’s some big hitters in this league, and some high-spending teams, that we’ve finished above so I think we’ve done really well.

“Of course you’ll look back at it on Saturday, depending on how other results go and how near we are to the play-offs, and say ‘there’s a game here where we could have got points’ but in general I think we’ve done really well.

“We’ve dealt with our injury crisis well, and the boys have continued to show a good approach. The challenge will be how we can improve upon this season next year.

“There’s not many times this season where we’ve played badly, we’ve just fallen a little bit short.

Jack Mazzone’s fourth minute header secured the points at fourth-placed Aveley.

Di Paola added: “We were good. In general, we seemed to deal with most of their threats. When they threw a few players forward near the end we probably should have scored a couple more.”

Horsham will be missing Tom Kavanagh for Saturday’s final game - at home to relegated Brightlingsea.