Margate boss Steven Watt: We’ve put a whole new team together, we’re still gelling, we’ll only get stronger and stronger

MARGATE manager Steven Watt says he wants his players to start convert the many chances that they create during games.

Watt will take his side to Hertfordshire to play Evo-Stik Southern Premier League side Kings Langley in The FA Cup second qualifying round on 16 September after comfortably beating Bostik South side East Grinstead Town 3-1 at Hartsdown Park last weekend.

Margate are in ninth-place in the Bostik Premier table with two wins and two draws from their opening five league outings and they travel to Bognor Regis on Saturday to play a Worthing side that are in the only relegation berth having lost all of their five league games.

“It will be another tough game.  Worthing are a good side, they have lost a few players, they’re having a tough time,” said Watt.

“We’ll approach it like we approach every game. We’ll be solid from the start, which I think we have been. We’ve been very solid as a team and we’ll continue to look to do that.

“Hopefully we can start putting these chances away but we’ll be going to try to win the game. I’m looking forward to it. I know (Worthing manager) Gary Elphick well.”

When asked whether Margate should be higher up in the Bostik Premier table at this early stage of the season, Watt replied: “It’s been good. I think we should have more points than what we have at the minute.  I do think we’ve been unlucky not to have the points in terms of chances we have missed.

“We’ve been good going forward at time. We miss that key component in the final third, if it’s a forward pass, a final delivery, a final shot, we’re just missing that final component.  Sometimes you find that at the beginning of the season.

“We’re still gelling as a team. We’ve put a whole new team together, we’re still gelling, we’ll only get stronger and stronger.”

Watt suffered a relegation from the Vanarama National League South last season but so did former Margate midfielder Jay Saunders when he first took over at then Isthmian Premier side Maidstone United and look where they are nowadays, the top flight of non-league football.

“Personally last year coming in the club wasn’t in a very good place at all,” said Watt.

“Taking over the job I was going to start my management career with a relegation. I knew that taking over the job.  It was about making changes and looking forward this year and next year looking to build so looking at the bigger picture when I first came in and looking at it now and where we are as a club now, the club is rebuilding and it will take time.

“Things have been rushed in the past, success has been tried to be instant.  We have to enjoy the journey with what we’re trying to do and that’s just not from a football perspective and that’s also off-the-pitch. 

“There’s been a lot of changes at the club and we’re still building as a club and I’m looking forward to where it’s going to take us.”

Visit Margate’s website: www.margate-fc.co.uk

Worthing  v  Margate
Bostik Premier Division
Saturday 9^th September 2017
Kick Off 3:00pm
at Nyewood Lane, Bognor Regis, West Sussex PO21 2TY