Ebbsfleet boss Dennis Kutrieb blasted his players’ attitude but refused to question their character after a shock FA Cup exit at Slough on Tuesday night.

The Fleet, literally handed a replay after two own goals in Saturday’s 2-2 draw, were outplayed and out-battled by National League South Slough, who thoroughly deserved to progress.

“We need to change the attitude as this attitude today was not acceptable,” said Kutrieb. “We were not up for it and that’s not good enough.

“The only positive for me is that we can focus on the league now and that’s desperately needed.

“We always need to find the players that are able to stand up and say they’re not having that. We (have to) fight against it and find a way to somehow win a game of football.

“But I don’t want to doubt the characters in general because it’s not as if they’re not trying. I can’t say the character is bad because even second half they tried but we clearly and deservedly lost the game.

“I don’t know if we had one clear-cut chance, but you always need to think how many chances did we have in the past - we never lacked on chances.

“The effort from the opponent was so much better than ours and that’s what we have to change.”

Kutrieb felt his players’ mindset wasn’t right, having dominated possession in the first game they came up against a more attack-minded Slough side in the replay.

“You know how the FA Cup is,” he added. “They got a result on Saturday, got us back on their 3G here on a Tuesday night in front of their own fans, they knew to put it on us and our boys were mentally not prepared.

“I think a few heads sub-consciously thought it would start where we ended on Saturday with total domination, just waiting for the chance to put it over the line. If you turn up with this mindset in the FA Cup, then you’re in big trouble.”

Slough put three men up front against the Fleet’s back three and the visitors were never able to get out.

But it wasn’t just in defence where Kutrieb had his concerns as he felt the ball failed to stick with his strikers at the other end.

“We didn’t want to change it because I thought we must be able to defend three v three against one league below,” explained Kutrieb.

“What we have done at times, especially in the first half, it was not about our defence not being good enough but going forward we were a bit limited as we couldn’t push a centre-half on and Josh Wright had to sit a bit deeper as well.

“Well done to them, and as I said sometimes if you feel, and everyone could feel in the first 10 minutes, that they put pressure on you then you need to find solutions.

Report: Slough 2-0 Ebbsfleet

“But up top we were not able to win a header, or hold the ball up longer than three seconds so it’s not always about the defence. It’s about the whole team.

“Our boys know what to do if we’re under pressure, how we can escape, where we can go long, but it was just not working because they out-battled us - as simple as that.”