Sheppey United manager Ernie Batten says midfielder Jacob Lambert could be out for the season after suffering knee injury during 3-2 defeat by Three Bridges

Sheppey manager Ernie Batten fears key man Jacob Lambert could miss the rest of the season.

Midfielder Lambert went off with a knee injury during the first half of the Ites’ 3-2 home defeat by Three Bridges on Saturday.

He joins a lengthy injury list that includes the likes of Danny Leonard (hamstring) and Dan Carr (also knee).

“Jacob’s gone off with a suspected tear in his knee, so he could be out for the season,” said Batten, speaking shortly after full-time.

“He’s on crutches at the moment, so he’s going to need a scan on that. It’s a huge blow.”

Sheppey, back in action two days on from a 4-0 derby defeat at Sittingbourne, dropped a place to seventh in Isthmian South East after a fourth consecutive loss.

A young home side trailed at the break and while Victor Aiye levelled, the visitors established a 3-1 lead before Dan Bradshaw replied in the last five minutes.

“When you’re losing key players and have to shuffle your back four constantly, it’s very difficult,” said Batten.

“Everyone knows you need a settled spine of the team.

“If you’re conceding too many goals, it’s very hard to win football matches, so that’s what we’ve suffered from a little bit.

“I wouldn’t want to criticise our boys too much because I think they are working hard.

“We’ve got a lot of youngsters in the side now - I think the average age of the side today was just under 20.

“So there’s a lot of youngsters that are learning the game, they made a few fundamental errors today which cost us.

“But I wouldn’t fault the effort or the commitment of the side, and on today’s performance, I thought we were OK in parts.

“I thought we could have put them under a bit more pressure, put more balls into the box, and I thought we could have got forward in numbers a