WE CAN MAKE THE PLAY-OFFS - NKO

He explained: "When we won 3-0 at Northwood in September we won the next three league games too, and that was a springboard for us to get up from 18th to third place in the table.

"We're back down in 15th but I'm hoping it will happen again. We've got to put the league and promotion first. It's always nice to go through as far as we can in the Senior Cup but we need to do as well as we can in the league. Anything else is just a bonus.

"If we can finish in the top five, the lower four go into the play-offs. That will extend our season and in play-offs anything can happen.

"I'm fit now and Sam Francis is back, which means we've got more attacking options, along with Ronnie Green and Liam Collins.

"But we must start to gamble. We've got one of the best defensive records in the division but we're not scoring enough goals ourselves.

"On Tuesday, Ronnie Green played wider on the right and I believe we have to play that 4-4-2 or as attacking a formation as we can. If we gamble a bit more we can do quite well."

Ekoku has finally shaken off a sequence of injuries and has now scored in each of Worthing's last three matches '” his first strikes of the season.

"I've had three funny injuries I couldn't play with '” a shoulder, a knee and an eye socket. I'm hoping they will be my last this season and that I can get a run of my own going. We've been unlucky with injuries but now I think we can start to get back up the table."

Ironically, Mark Knee, a mainstay in defence as well as midfield during Worthing's long sticky patch of injury problems, sustained a knee injury in the Sussex Senior Cup on Tuesday that was needing careful investigation this week.

It came from a challenge by ex-Rebel midfielder Andy Walker. Knee is the one major doubt going towards Saturday's visit by Northwood.

See The Herald for match Worthing's match reports against Horsham and Kingstonian.