Hastings United ready for the Friday Night Lights against Herne Bay

The U’s will be coming into a game off the back of a defeat for the first time this season following last week’s narrow 1-0 loss away to Ashford United.

Meanwhile, Herne Bay’s last outing saw them take a point in a goalless stalemate against Haywards Heath Town.

A win for Agutter’s side will see them move seven points clear at the top of the table before the weekend’s already begun and Agutter expects his side to be confident heading into the game.

He said: “We’ve won every league game at home so we’re confident. Friday isn’t the most ideal time for teams to come to us as I don’t think we’ve lost a midweek game for a long time.

“Having watched Herne Bay a couple of times, I know they’re a decent side with a lot of individual quality but no more than what we’ve already faced this year so we go into it confident and looking forward to it.”

Agutter was also keen on making use of the opportunity to have the Saturday off.

He added: “We know that coming to us midweek is tough and we understand it’s very difficult travelling across from Kent to Sussex midweek but we’ve just got so many games to fit in so it was the first opportunity we could grab.

“A lot of the players were keen to get the Saturday off and it ticked lots of boxes for us.”

Friday night games are uncommon at any level of English football and Agutter wants the fans to turn out in numbers for the rare occasion.

He said: “The results and style of football have spoken for themselves so people can do a lot worse than come to the Pilot Field.

“We got our biggest crowd last time out against Chichester and it would be nice to go bigger and better than that.”

Three key players are expected to be missing from the squad with Adam Lovatt, Ollie Black and Daivde Rodari all set to be sidelined.

Kick-off is at 7.45pm.