Sheppey United boss Kevin Watson welcomes selection headaches as his team prepares for Kent derby at Deal Town in Isthmian South East

Sheppey United boss Kevin Watson has welcomed the chance to finally have some serious selection dilemmas.

The Ites had captain Danny Leonard back for the weekend win over East Grinstead Town and Watson could have more options soon.

Billy Bennett is likely to be back from illness this weekend and Gillingham youngster Ben Clark is close to recovering from injury.

Watson said: “Saturday was the first time in a long time where we had a bit of a selection headache, for good reasons, and also the bench we had was probably as strong as it’s been all season.

“You are bringing players on who you know can either consolidate things, or try and change a game in a positive manner, and I can’t remember a situation before where we have had the majority of players available.

“We had Billy Bennett absent through illness on Saturday, but that was a late call, and he probably would have played if he had to but we had other fit players. Ben Clark should be back training this week.

“We have been hit quite bad through absences, injury and illness so it is nice to have the majority back and available.

“Danny had his first full contact session last Thursday and he came in for Billy. We were going to give Danny another week but he got some minutes and came through fine. We hope he’ll be back in contention this Saturday.”

Sheppey travel to Deal this weekend having claimed their first back-to-back league wins and clean sheets of the season.

Saturday’s 2-0 home win over East Grinstead followed a midweek victory over Beckenham Town by the same scoreline.

Jacob Lambert and Rolando Onu - with his 16th goal of the season - settled the weekend match in Sheppey’s favour.

Those two wins came off the back of a 5-4 loss to Broadbridge Heath and ahead of a