Ebbsfleet boss Josh Wright admitted he had to rush back two defenders after illness left them low on numbers at the weekend.

The Fleet had to make six changes from the side that lost at Barnet for Saturday’s 4-1 home loss to Gateshead.

That included surprise starts for Lewis Page and Luke O’Neill, the former was not expected to feature until January but answered Wright’s plea for help.

“They’ve both had long-term injuries – Luke dipped back in but had a little setback and Pagey has been out for a long time,” said Wright.

“The truth is this was one game too early for Lewis, maybe two too early, in terms of the games that he should have been back for as we were looking at the new year.

“But I had to speak to him and lean on him and I thought he was decent in what he gave me. I know what he’s about and what he can give us.

“I know for a fact Luke wasn’t 100 per cent but the stuff he does out there for us is high quality and we’re going to need him. He’s a big player for us but I could only lean on him for a little while.

“There were other bodies that haven’t been, for one reason or another, near the matchday squad for quite a while and we had to use them while there were others who just weren’t themselves. It happens, not to this extent, but it does happen from time to time.

“That’s life, life is challenging and so is this but the only way you get through those challenges is to stand up to it and hit it head-on.”

Wright declared when he took the manager’s role that he didn’t want to combine it with playing duties.

But even that intention was in danger, with so many players struggling with the virus that spread through the squad.

“At one stage it crossed my mind,” admitted Wright. “My assistant, David Kerslake, said it to me that I was pretty much going to have to play or be involved.

“I decided what I decided, though, and I’ve tried not to be involved from the start and I’d like to think that was the closest we will come to it. It was a conversation but we chose against it.”

Read more: Ebbsfleet 1-4 Gateshead match report

It was never going to be easy facing Barnet and Gateshead in Wright’s first two matches.

But he insists he’s learnt plenty from the experience.

“It’s been a difficult week but a week I can learn from, and the boys can learn from” added the Fleet boss. “The games come thick and fast, so we have to dust ourselves down and go again.

“The results tell you a lot, the opposition tells you a lot. I knew when I looked at It as a player, now as a manager, that they were daunting (Barnet and Gateshead).

“But I believed that we could get something out of at least one, if not both, of them but you have to regroup. You have to go again and work out where, what and why.

“This week was made double hard with a crisis at the club through illness and injury, mainly the illness. I haven’t seen anything like it since Covid, I cancelled training on Monday to try and stop the spread.

“At one stage in the week I said to David Kerslake that we could struggle to get an XI out, certainly a bench and it was worrying. But at the same time, we had to dig in and go again, and that squad gave me what they had. Quite a few of them were carrying stuff and not feeling themselves.”