Dover Athletic manager Andy Hessenthaler concedes club cannot afford promotion back to the National League this season

Boss Andy Hessenthaler concedes Dover cannot afford to go back up and will be instead attempting to rebuild the club this season.

Whites, who have lost six of their last seven matches, were knocked out of the FA Cup on Saturday as they were beaten 2-0 by early National League South frontrunners Ebbsfleet.

They have lost four games in a row and they sit 19th in National League South having been relegated from the National League last season with just a point after a 12-point deduction.

Hessenthaler, who returned to Crabble in 2018 for a second spell in the hot-seat, said: “We have had a couple of tough years as a club, minus 12 [points] last year and a £40,000 fine, with the decisions the chairman [Jim Parmenter] wanted to make.

“When I first came in, I kept us up. We went full-time but we’ve gone back to part-time. It’s been really difficult for everybody concerned.

“We’ve just got to settle down and start winning games - and I believe we will.

“We can’t afford to go up, let’s just put it out there, we can’t afford to go up. The league above, financially, is just a joke. We can’t compete and people will realise that when they get in there.

“We’ve just got to have a season where we get a few wins, enjoy some games and make sure we rebuild.

“We have got 14 new players so it’s a rebuild again, isn’t it? But we’ll keep going.”

Weekend opponents Weymouth, also relegated from the National League last season, have had an even worse start, though.

They are bottom with just two points, five less than Whites. Although clubs in some quarters are expected to automatically bounce straight back after relegation and compete at the top-end of the league they go into, that’s not always the case.

“My old club, Gillingham, they’ve just