Folkestone manager Jay Saunders admits he faces a race against time to solve their defensive crisis.

Invicta are without three centre-backs after Jamie Fielding came off injured in the first half of their defeat at Tonbridge on Tuesday night.

Fielding joins skipper Kevin Lokko and Dan Quick in the treatment room and leaves Saunders with a major defensive headache ahead of Saturday’s trip to Chesham in National League South.

“A couple of weeks back, we had probably too many defenders,” admitted Saunders.

“Now we’ve lost Lokko, we’ve lost Quick for another month and we’ve lost Jamie.

“Before it was that we had no forwards. Now we’re getting all the forwards back and we’ve gone the other route.

“Our frontline’s all pretty much available and I’m leaving people out like Aaron Cosgrave. But on the flip side of that, we’ve ended up with no defenders.

“I’ve got to do something for Saturday. We can’t go into that game with what we’ve got, we just can’t.

“It’s hard because ultimately if we go out and sign a couple of centre-halves and then a couple of them come back in a couple of weeks, all of a sudden… it’s a difficult one.

“It’s a juggling act and I don’t want to go with too many loans but we’ve got to look at that area because to go into Saturday without Jamie Fielding, Kevin Lokko and Dan Quick is a big ask.”

Saunders has got scope to bring in reinforcements to help solve their defensive issues. Without extra options, he’s being forced into positional changes across the side.

“It’s hard,” added the Folkestone boss.

“You’re not just taking Jamie off and putting a centre-half in on Tuesday.

“We’re having to change the whole shape and put three or four players out of position and that becomes difficult.

“I’m a big believer I won’t just do it for the sake of it, they’ve got to be right. But now my hand is forced. It’s a big ask to get a quality centre-half in for Saturday, it’s going to be really hard.

“Then you’ve got to integrate them in the group, which at training on Thursday night is going to be a light session after a game on Tuesday.

“We’ve got to look at things but that’s part of being a manager. We’ll look at it and we’ll do what we need to do. I’ve got to work now and do my side of it to try and get people.

“We were chatting as a management group before Tuesday’s game and saying we need to bring another defender in.

“It’s not been through a lack of trying. Decent centre-halves are hard to come by - and we’ve got three very good ones on the sidelines here. I think most teams would struggle with that.”

Saunders did bring in former Charlton attacker Paris Lock ahead of the Tonbridge game. He’ll give an extra option going forward, with the pair having worked together when Saunders was in charge at Longmead.

“Paris obviously played for me at Tonbridge on loan when he was at Wimbledon,” noted Saunders. “He’s someone that we feel adds to us.

“He had a bad injury last year but I think you saw little glimpses when he came on, that he can beat people and offer something different.

“He’s had a couple of training sessions with us and we’ll see where it goes.

“He had an operation on his hamstring at the end of last season so his contract didn’t get renewed at Charlton but we knew him from before.

“He came in and trained and he’s got himself fit so he gives us another option in the attacking sense.”