WOOTTON Bassett boss Jeff Roberts has said ahead of Saturday’s Supplementary Cup quarter-final at Cheltenham Saracens that he might not be at the club next season if there is not sufficient investment in his playing squad.

Roberts and his assistant Drew Youngsam took over at The Corinium at the beginning of this season having previously been in charge at Calne. Bassett are fairly comfortable in lower mid-table of the Hellenic Premier League, despite their defeat on Thursday against Bracknell stretching their run without a league win to seven games.

Tomorrow’s game is rematch of Monday’s league defeat at Cheltenham and the Supplementary Cup now represents Roberts’ only chance of achieving something tangible from this season.

Lack of goals has been Bassett’s downfall recently as they end up drawing too many games. If Roberts is as the club next year he is keen that his attack is brought up to scratch with what he says is the nucleus of a decent squad.

“There is a committee meeting in a couple of weeks where we will discuss next season,” Roberts told the Advertiser.

“We’ve lacked strikers, consistent strikers, midfield and defence-wise we’re quite strong.

“We’ve just gone to them and said this is what we need. The nucleus of what we’ve got is very good, we need to keep them players and bring players in to compete with them and improve with them next season.

“If we were to part company it would be because of the financial side and what we can spend on players. Five or six of the players we have are Southern League standard, we want a couple more at that level.

“That’s out of my hands, if we (Roberts and Youngsam) want to take it further as management we need a little more behind the scenes money to bring in that quality in.”

Roberts was planning to rest a couple of players in the Bracknell game with an eye on tomorrow’s cup match. If Bassett are to keep their season alive silverware-wise then they will have to perform better than they did last Monday in their defeat to tomorrow’s opposition.

Roberts admits that the Supplementary Cup was not the first prize he had in mind this season but is keen for Bassett to progress.

“It’s not the best of cups to go to, but now it’s the only realistic chance of silverware. Yesterday (Monday’s loss to Cheltenham) was disappointing and have had a chat in changing room and will go down there to win.”