Dennis Kutrieb will have a word with Sefa Kahraman after the defender was sent off for the second time in four days as Ebbsfleet crashed at Maidstone.

Kahraman lasted 16 minutes of Fleet’s 5-1 defeat at Dorking at the weekend and walked again on Tuesday night after a needless push saw him pick up a second booking with the visitors 4-0 down.

It compounded a miserable night as Fleet suffered another heavy away loss against fellow National South promotion contenders.

“I will definitely have a word with him because he’s on a yellow card and he can’t go in there to push a defender,” said boss Kutrieb.

“It’s not necessary, you don’t have to do it.

“It was definitely not a good challenge from him so we need to have a word because the players need to have the focus and they can’t get distracted with frustration.

“We’re 4-0 down, the game is gone, so just have your emotions under control.

"I understand because everyone wants to win and then today we have an early penalty against us, we’re 4-0 down and you feel you the world is against you.

“But it’s not necessary and it’s out of character for him.

“He’s not usually a player who’s angry or who has big problems.”

Kutrieb was sent from the dugout in the aftermath of the incident which also saw Maidstone keeper Tom Hadler red-carded as players piled in.

The Fleet boss was adamant he did nothing wrong but, like Kahraman, needs to control his emotions.

“To be honest, the referee couldn’t really tell me why he sent me off,” said Kutrieb.

“The linesman made the decision or told him to send me off. Maybe I need to learn there as well not to get involved.

“I just wanted to help the referee, to be honest. I didn’t say anything bad, no negative words, swearing, whatever, I didn’t say anything bad, I just wanted to help to get our players back on the pitch and not involved in bad things but obviously you get punished sometimes.

• Report: Maidstone 4-0 Ebbsfleet

"If the referee makes decisions against us, we have to take it and try and get on with it.”

Fleet conceded a penalty with less than a minute played, Joe Martin penalised for pulling back Roarie Deacon.

Kutreib felt there had been a foul on the halfway line before that and also claimed Martin had been fouled first in the box.

Joan Luque converted the penalty and Maidstone added second-half goals through George Fowler and Sam Corne’s double, with Kutrieb conceding the better side won.

“We have now two losses in a row but, as I’ve said many times before, you can’t get carried away when you have a bad performance,” said Kutrieb.

“You need to keep your focus, you need to see which mistakes we have done today.

“You can’t get distracted, maybe mentally distracted, when you concede an early goal when maybe you feel it’s unfair.

“I think we had a good spell late in the first half, we had a good spell at the beginning of the second half but of course, similar to Dorking on Saturday, when you concede a second goal in such an important game, it’s not easy to take for the boys and you could see Maidstone were full of confidence and got a deserved win.”