LEE Noble will miss the next two Heybridge Swifts games after picking up his tenth booking of the season during the 2-1 Isthmian north division defeat at home to Brentwood, writes JON LONGMAN.

Noble’s suspension is one more team selection headache for Swifts manager Steve Tilson, who could be fielding his entire squad as a starting line-up at Walthamstow this weekend and against leaders Lowestoft on Saturday week.

Tilson’s squad has been decimated by long-term injuries to former Brentwood favourite Rob Harvey, captain Quba Gordon and defender Tyler Brampton.

Worse followed for Tilson who said: “Ben Sartain has had to come off with a groin injury which doesn’t help the cause.

“If you look at the bench we can’t change the game in any way, which makes life very difficult.

“I can’t fault the players because they have given everything they have got and some shouldn’t have been playing.

“We lost Sam Park in the warm-up, but hopefully Ben will be back but we will have to wait and see.”

The turning point for Swifts against Brentwood came two minutes into time added on, at the end of the first half.

Noble was felled by Shad Ngandu inside the box, but Kieran Jones saw his penalty turned for a corner by Brentwood keeper Melvin Minter.

So Brentwood went into the break 1-0 ahead on the strength of Jesse Olukulo’s fierce angled drive after the Swifts defence failed to deal with Matt Cripps’ long punt up field in the third minute.

The Swifts hit back right at the start of the second half when Kane Munday’s corner was met by Lewis Watson who nodded the ball forward for Jack Adlington-Pile to head the equaliser.

The Swifts then pressed for a winner after a short delay because a spectator in the crowd of 323 was knocked out by a Brentwood clearance, but it was George Sykes who broke the deadlock in favour of the visitors with 69 minutes on the clock.

Tilson added: “We let the ball bounce in the box and George Sykes scored, but outside of that they only had a couple of chances.

“At the other end, either our first touch wasn’t good enough or our end product wasn’t, so we end up losing 2-1 when it goes down to fine margins and we didn’t get the breaks.

“Brentwood are a very difficult side to play because they are very direct and have two big lads up top who you have to compete against.

“We played some good stuff in the first half, created some decent opportunities and we were on top for most of the game but didn’t play as well in the second half.

“We could have gone in at half-time at one each which would have meant a different team talk.

“We’ve come out for the second half and Jack has scored from a corner, but they only had a couple of shots and Noah [Phillips] has made a good save.”

Phillips has been signed on loan from Leyton Orient to fill the gap left by regular keeper Callum Chafer, who is out for the rest of the season with a knee injury.