PORTLAND United first-team coach Stuart Heath has warned of an “improving” Team Solent in the build-up to their Sydenhams Wessex Premier Division contest at the Weyline Stadium tomorrow (3pm).

The student side is notoriously weakened outside of semester times but with this fixture landing firmly in term, Heath is expecting a difficult tussle.

Solent recently secured a 2-1 win away at Christchurch, while Portland were pushed hard in a 4-2 League Cup win at the university side in September.

Heath told Echosport: “They had a good result at Christchurch and gave us a close game in the League Cup when we went up there.

“They’re obviously improving given the nature of the squad they’ve got available at the time of year.

“We’ve just got to learn the lesson from two weeks ago at Andover New Street when we drew 2-2 at home and they were bottom of the table.

“A sign of good players and teams is that when they get setbacks, they learn their lessons from them. There’ll be no complacency on our part.

“We’ll look to give the same performance that we did against Hamworthy.

“The main aim for us now is to be consistent, we’ve got a good place in the league in third and we’ve got two teams above us that we need to chase down.

“We’ll only be able to do that if we’re absolutely relentless in our results.”

Shaun Bessant (abdomen) remains out but Alex Halloran could return after featuring for the reserves last time out, scoring the opening goal in a 2-1 win over Blandford.