Match-free week is just what Racine needed ahead of Worthing’s TV date

The Rebels lost 3-1 at Chippenham last Saturday, their third defeat in eight days, to slip to fifth in the National South table.

But after four games in 13 days for Racine and his troops following the shock departure of Adam Hinshelwood, the interim manager and his staff have now had a full week to work with his players on the training ground on how he wants them to play.

Chippenham v Worthing in pictures by Mike Gunn.

Fans will see the results of that on Sunday when eighth-placed Bath City visit – and so will viewers of TNT Sports, with the game being shown live as the broadcaster dips its toe into the second tier of non-league.

Racine, speaking after the loss at Chippenham, said: "When you look at the last three games we’ve played, we changed formation halfway through the Taunton game and since then we’ve only had one session to work on it.

"It’s important now to apply that and work on it over the next few training sessions. It’s held us back a little… it hasn’t given us time to work on the shape we’ve implemented. So it will be important this week to get those sessions in.”

Racine felt the defeat at Chippenham – where Ollie Pearce returned to scoring form from the penalty spot – was the first one in the run of three setbacks where they lacked quality.

Racine said: “We were not quite at it in terms of quality on the ball. The last two games have been really good – we got into some good positions and played some really good stuff but obviously haven’t had that bit of luck. But in this game we just lacked a bit of quality.

"The pitch was quite narrow and quite bobbly... I don’t want to make excuses but that does impact how many chances you can create.

"It was a game where we were never going to get loads of chances so it was important that when we did, we were clinical – and this time we weren’t that clinical."

Worthing have conceded three in each of their past three games and Racine said they needed to work hard on defending set-pieces.

He is delighted to have experienced Nicky Wheeler available again after injury to boost attacking options for the big run-in.