Striker Phil Roberts will not play for Dartford again after failing to turn up for a game last week.

Roberts missed last week’s defeat at Weston in National League South and joint-boss Adam Flanagan has revealed that he won’t feature again at Princes Park after failing to get in touch with the club.

“Basically Phil didn’t turn up for the Weston game,” said Flanagan. “We thought he would get in contact but he hasn’t.

“When Phil was here he showed he is a good player, we had tales of this kind of thing happening but we took a chance on him.

“We thought we could change him and we thought we were winning but obviously he let his team-mates down last week by not turning up and he has let us down by not getting in contact.

“He can’t be part of this club going forward because we need people that want to play for the shirt, are passionate and give everything.

“If you are going to just decide not to come to a game, then that’s not what we want.”

Roberts, who has also played for Braintree and Chelmsford, joined the Darts in December from Hemel Hempstead.

He scored key goals for Dartford to help their play-off push but Flanagan questioned whether he had the right attitude to play for the club.

“Deep down, I think Phil is a really good lad,” reflected Flanagan. “Technically he showed everyone while he was here that he is a superb footballer but unfortunately he found the style of play a little bit difficult being truthful because we are quite direct and we expect high levels of work-rate.

“But he still got eight goals in 16 games, and he could have had more than that. He became a big player for us so we’re disappointed with how it’s played out.

“We waited until Thursday to hear from him and still nothing so no one player is bigger than the club and we’ve got a dressing room of 10 fit outfield players that we need to rely on now.

“It’s easy to feel sorry for ourselves but we won’t – we’ll just battle on to the end.”

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