Manager Bradley Micallef has a selection headache ahead of his teams opening league fixture with Goresbrook United at the Avondale Arena this Sunday.

Missing from the squad are Adrian Dobrin (Holiday), Darren Salmon (Playing previous day in 7-A-Side tournament for HSBC) and Peter Pedonomou (Work).

After the influx of players over the summer, his squad is saturated with quality players and he now faces the difficult challenge of keeping everybody happy. When asked about his selection issues he had this to say;

“Last season, having a big squad benefited us no end. You will always have players that either have to work or have other arrangements. Having a large squad enabled us to win Division 2 comfortably and attack the Bill Nolan trophy with aggression.

It’s a nice headache to have. Although it’s never nice telling people they will not be getting changed this week. I’m lucky to have a group of players that turn up to training on a regular basis and come Sunday morning – hang over or no hangover – they are there in force.

Losing our captain Chris Maskell in the summer hit me hard. His ability and occasional words of wisdom will be sorely missed. As soon as I knew he was leaving, I sprung into action in the transfer market and also made sure I tied down the existing squad members to lucrative contracts (subsidised subs).

I have no doubt that come the January transfer window, there will be 2 or 3 boys that are not happy with the squad system and will go there own way. That is fine – I have laid it on the line plain and simple that people will have to fight for their place in the Racing team – If it’s not for them, then they know where the door is. No hard feelings.

Finally, I’d like to welcome Goresbrook United to the Avondale Arena for our first league game in the Essex Corinthian Premier Division. From what I have heard, they are a very good side, they like to hustle and are capable of causing us problems going forward – like us, they enjoy getting it down on the deck, so both sets of fans should be in for a feast of football.”

Squad: Stephen Dawes, Ercan Fikret, Terry Prati, Rikki Prati, Bradley Micallef, Chris Tilbury, Akash Bhuwanee, Daniel Micallef, Russell Leiter, David Day, Stephen Clarke, David Sack, Darren Waithe, Ross Hunt, James Spicer, Danny Giemanjer.

KO 10.30

Venue: Avondale Arena