Whitton United manager Glenn Snell believes Long Melford’s 5-1 battering of his team on Wednesday was one of the best performances he’s seen in his 15 years involved with football.

Newly-promoted Melford lost 1-0 at Felixstowe and Walton last weekend, but recovered to thump Whitton in their first home game in the Thurlow Nunn Premier Division.

Snell said: “I’m not going to criticise my team, because Long Melford were probably the best team I’ve seen in 15 years.

“They were fit, sharp, played like machines, and they were virtually impossible to play against.

“Any team in the division would have lost that game.

“It’s hard to see them producing that kind of performance for 36 weeks in the year, but if they do, they’ll be up at the top for sure.”

Whitton will attempt to pick themselves up and move forward when they host FC Romania in the FA Cup tomorrow (3pm kick-off), a match that Snell described as being highly important for the club.

“It will be a tough game on Saturday, but the FA Cup is financially very important for us, and it’s great to be able to repay the people who put money into this club out of the kindness of their hearts,” said the Whitton boss.

“Hopefully we can learn from the Melford game and make an improvement in every game from here.”

Whitton currently have six players missing and subsequently will field three teenagers today.

“My only option is to play three teenage debutants on Saturday, but we will stick together, trust and believe in each other and hopefully get the result we want,” explained Snell.

He added: “After next week I will have all my players back, then we can settle down, stabilise and add to the squad if we need to.

“It’s all a huge learning curve, I’ve only been a manager for three weeks!”

The Greens will also be without striker Mark Ray after the forward picked up an injury at Melford on Wednesday.

“Mark’s important to us and he’s going to be a huge miss,” Snell admitted.

“He’s been to the hospital to have an x-ray done and hopefully he will only be out for two weeks, instead of two months.

“But his absence leads to other opportunities for players, and they need to take that.”