GUTTED Nicky English says he knew his time was up at Whyteleafe when he turned up at every game expecting his side to lose.

The former AFC Wimbledon and Chipstead boss parted company with the Church Road outfit by "mutual consent" on Sunday after Leafe lost 3-2 at home to Ramsgate.

The defeat was Leafe's ninth loss in their last 10 games and English says he could not find the motivation to continue, believing he did not have the financial power to keep his team up.

"I first spoke to Mark Coote over Christmas and said to him that I didn't think we would be able to stay up with the players or budget that we had," he said. "I identified four players that I thought would make the difference but he said the money wasn't there for us.

"After we lost on Saturday I went to him again about them but the answer was the same and we decided it was best if I moved on and let someone else have a go."

The budget has been a bone of contention during English's whole time at the Ryman South club and the manager, who kept the team up last year with no cash to spend, says he could not continue to keep the troubled side out of the drop zone.

"I'm proud of what I achieved last season as we didn't pay any player a single penny," he said. "This year we had a bit more money which enabled us to pay expenses but that is all.

"The problem is the division has got harder this year as the other clubs who were around us last time have all gone out and strengthened while we lost four of our best players last summer. We had about £300 a week this year but is hard to continue to compete with the likes of Chipstead and Merstham who virtually doubled their budget in the summer and are both spending more than £1,000 a week.

"When you add the likes of Crawley Down, who have come up with big ambitions, there weren't a lot of teams we could realistically compete with financially. The problem is when players are playing for you for nothing or just expenses it feels like they are doing you a favour and the discipline goes."

Leafe are currently six points off safety with 14 games to go, but while English says he "would love to see the team stay up" he admits he expects the team to be playing Combined Counties League football next season unless Coote opens his cheque book.

The chairman bought the club outright at the end of last week but, according to English, was unable to promise extra funds would become available.

"I said to him last week how desperate are you to see your club in the Ryman League but he was very non-committal," added English. "His attitude was very much 'if we go down we'll do our best to come back up next season."

"I've really enjoyed working with him as I think he was a great chairman, he never once interfered with team selection or things like that, but I couldn't carry on as we were. I hope someone new can come in and give them a boost but it is a very tough job.

"If they stay up I'll take my hat off to the man who does it."

English, who claims he has already had two chairman get in touch with him since leaving Whyteleafe, says he is keen to get back into football as soon as possible.

But he said he would not rush into a job that didn't give him a fair playing field to compete financially.

"If I have a budget that is good enough and I fail then I will walk away," he added. "But I've never been in that position. The only time I had money to spend we won everything with AFC Wimbledon but I didn't get to keep the job.

"It's a shame it didn't work out for me at Whyteleafe as they are a great set of people.

"The match day staff, groundsmen, secretaries are all a great bunch and I don't have a bad word to say about any of them."