Welling boss Mark Goldberg claimed his players have let him down after three defeats in the first week of the season.

Goldberg has signed a completely new squad for the new campaign, his first full season at the helm, but it has been a shocking start with defeats to Oxford City, Bishop’s Stortford and Weston-super-Mare in National League South.

Having defended his under-performing stars so far, Goldberg was clearly running out of patience.

“We can’t paint over the cracks, it just wasn’t good enough,” he said.

“We’ve got too many nice characters in the dressing room. Sometimes you need to set a cat amongst the pigeons and I need to work out how best to do that.

“We’ve had a good chat amongst ourselves after the game, a real inquest. Is it desire? Is it attitude? Is it heart? We’ve got players that are good enough to do a lot better.

“I’ve been very supportive of them but I let them know in no uncertain terms that I felt that they let me down.

“It comes to a stage where I have the responsibility to put points on the board, and drive the club forward on and off the pitch.

“I will support my players as best I can but a lot of them have to hold their hands up and analyse their own game, performance and desire and if they are not prepared to put it in then I am going to have to make some changes.”

The Wings, who travel to East Thurrock on Tuesday night, have scored just twice in three matches – but it is the way they have defended which has caused most concern to the management team.

“It’s the defensive side that is worrying me most,” added Goldberg. “I think that there’s good reason to feel we’re not creating enough chances but we’ve got the ammunition to put that right.

“It hasn’t gelled yet, we haven’t got them working as a team and unit yet. It’s down to myself and Damian (Matthew, assistant manager) to put that right.

“It couldn’t have been a worst start but I’ve come back from a lot worse situations than this. There’s no doubt that we will bounce back from this.”