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Andy Hessenthaler said rubbish was the only word fit to describe Dover's performance in Tuesday's 4-3 home National League defeat to Maidenhead.
The Whites boss admits he was at a loss to explain how Dover could play so poorly, just three days after producing an excellent display in Saturday's 1-1 home draw with Solihull.
Ruel Sotiriou – making his first start – twice had them in front but they trailed 4-2 before Paul Rooney's header gave them a lifeline.
Loan signing Sotiriou could have salvaged a point only to see his 80th minute penalty saved by Maidenhead keeper Chris Dunn, but manager Hessenthaler had no complaints about the result which brought to an end Dover's five-game unbeaten run.
Asked for his view on the performance Hessenthaler said: "Rubbish, there is only one word for it, rubbish.
"That just shows you as a manager, you're mystified.
"Where's that come from? We're on a run of five games unbeaten, we've only conceded one goal in the last four and we conceded four tonight, all through the middle of the pitch.
"I can't be positive tonight, it looked like the team hadn't played together.
"I think we thought the game was won before we kicked-off.
"I said how good they were Saturday and all of a sudden it's in their heads. They came out as if 'We're playing Maidenhead, we can beat Maidenhead' and credit to them they deserved to win, simple as that.
"As a staff we ummed and ahhed about players, whether we should take players out after two games in three days, but it looked like two or three, maybe four couldn't play two games in three days but we should he able to shouldn't we?
"They have and they wanted it more than us and that's the worrying thing from today.
"As a manager I'm scratching my head, we take some of the blame, we pick the team, we got it wrong tonight but the players got it wrong as well."
Hessenthaler admits the performance may force him to re-think his line-up for Sunday's second round FA Cup tie away to League 1 Peterborough.
He added: "They (the players) have got to question themselves.
"I can't come out and say anything positive about that tonight, because if I did I'd be kidding myself, and people would be looking at me saying 'How can you say there are positives because there weren't.
"We lost the game, we deserved to lose the game and we weren't good enough, simple as that.
"After that I could probably put a load of names in a hat and pick them out."
Sotiriou's month long loan from Leyton Orient finished after the Maidenhead game but Hessenthaler hopes he can persuade the League 2 club to extend the deal.
He added: "We'll have a conversation with Leyton Orient. I'd like to keep him and let's hope we can because he was the brightest spark out of anything."
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