DOVER Athletic must put their continuing awayday blues behind them again on Saturday when they take on Merthyr Tydfil at the Hoverspeed Stadium.

The defeats at Tiverton last Saturday and Hinckley on Tuesday night have left Whites' new management team of Richard Langley and Mark Patterson facing the same dilemma which perplexed previous manager Clive Walker: Why is Whites' away form this season so poor compared to their performances at home?

Langley, whose reign had started with the encouraging 3-2 home win over high-flying Nuneaton, said: "We played well at Tiverton and bombarded their goal without being able to score.

"But Tuesday's performance was disappointing. You can't make the sort of defensive errors we made and not expect to be punished. And we didn't play with the same passion and desire as we had shown at Tiverton. It's hard to explain why."

Langley switched to a 4-4-2 formation at Hinckley, with Lee Spiller playing up front and Tommy Tyne dropping back into midfield. Simon Glover was also recalled in place of Matt Carruthers, who withdrew from the squad on Tuesday after injuring his back at work.

Langley will check Carruthers' fitness before naming his side to face Merthyr. The Welsh club have suffered a poor start to the season and have lost their last five games.

They crashed 4-0 at home to new leaders Weymouth last Saturday and this Saturday's game is the sort of fixture that Whites must win if they are to claim a place in the new Conference Second Division next season.

* THE saga over Margate's groundsharing arrangement with Dover Athletic was finally concluded this week.

Whites' chairman Mick Kemp announced that he had agreed a deal with Margate counterpart Jim Parmenter for the Conference club to play the rest of their home matches this season at the Hoverspeed Stadium.

There had been speculation that Margate would switch to Ashford's ground after playing their FA Trophy home tie Grays Athletic at Homelands, but Kemp said: "There has been a lot of hoo-hah about Margate moving to Ashford but I knew for a fact that Jim Parmenter could not have signed anything with Ashford, as was being claimed, because he was out of the country.

"When he got back last week I put a figure to him for the rest of the season and he came back with a figure which was very close to mine and we settled on that."

Providing the arrangement is ratified by the Nationwide committee next week, Dover will have a valuable source of extra income between now and the end of the season.

And Kemp stressed that the groundsharing would now be on a "landlord and tenant basis".

He said: "As landlords, we will now have priority over fixture clashes, instead of as before when Margate had priority because they were the senior club.

"Consequently, where there are five fixture clashes over our remaining fixtures, Margate will play on a Friday night or on a Sunday and we will play on the Saturday.

"And our game with Eastbourne Borough on Boxing Day will be going ahead as scheduled."