BRENTWOOD Town manager Steve Witherspoon hailed his "exhausted" side after they bounced back from three straight defeats with a 1-0 win over AFC Sudbury.
With just pride to play for, Witherspoon's men are facing a punishing schedule which sees them still have five games left to play at the time of going to press – with just 11 days remaining in the season.
They had been beaten 3-0 at relegation-threatened Redbridge 48 hours earlier, but Steve Butterworth's late strike – atoning for an earlier penalty miss – saw Sudbury beaten in what Witherspoon said was a "cracking game of football".
"It's a war of attrition," he said. "I've really only got 12 or 13 first-team players to play all these games, that's all, then we're dipping into the U18s.
"I've had the captain Doyley [Ryan Doyle] ring me up on Monday and say that he's absolutely exhausted so he won't be playing on Tuesday night.
"There were players out there on Saturday on their last legs. We'd lost three on the trot so I kept the same 11 on the pitch which I really shouldn't have done but we did well to get the 1-0 win.
"We wanted to win because to lose three on the trot is not nice.
"Sudbury are a good side, they've underachieved massively but if you let them play they are a very good side. They're one of the better sides in the league. We played really well.
If we'd played anything like that on Thursday night, we'd have won but it didn't happen. Thursday's an example, we had four boys in midfield all 18.
"It's hard, but you can't keep playing the same players every game. We've got six games left, it's ridiculous.
"Somewhere along the line we might get a tanking because we're not going to have the players there and the ones that are there are exhausted."
The last quarter of an hour had plenty of action as Sudbury were reduced to ten men before Butterworth saw his penalty saved, but Witherspoon was delighted with how his side kept going.
"We should have been three or four goals up before half-time," the manager added. "We made chances but we just haven't taken them, so I'm thinking it's going to be another one of those. We seem to find all sorts of ways not to score goals.
"Their goalkeeper has pulled off save after save. But it was a cracking game of football, it was a sticky top but there were no bad challenges, lots of good football from both sides and I thought we got what we deserved in the end.
"When they went down to ten men I thought we did really well there, because you can sometimes panic but we didn't, we got it down, passed around well, kept the ball on the floor, changed direction of the play and tried to get in behind them.
"I think Butterworth, after missing the penalty, really put a massive effort in to try to get the goal and he got it in the end.
"We pushed forward, we tried to get more people in the box. It was a fantastic save, and Butterworth just had to be there to tap it home, he got himself out of jail really."
Witherspoon saw his goalkeeper Richard Wray stretchered off against Aveley last Tuesday, and he is not expecting to be able to call upon his impressive number one again this term.
"He had a bad injury at Easter last year and it's the same knee," he added. "We don't think it's quite as bad but we're just waiting for the swelling to go down and then assess it.
"He'll tell us exactly where it's at but I don't think we'll have him for the rest of the season. He's a real loss. We've got a couple of keepers signed on anyway as cover. They're not Richard's standard but they're not bad at all."
The Blues were due to travel to Thamesmead last (Tuesday) night before trips to Waltham Abbey on Thursday, Ware on Saturday and Witham Town on Tuesday.