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Ebbsfleet boss Dennis Kutrieb admitted his side paid the price for missed chances at Welling on Saturday.
The Fleet dominated the opening half-hour at Park View Road but only had a Darren McQueen goal to show for their domination.
Stefan Payne’s hat-trick turned the game around and Josh Wright’s stoppage-time strike proved too little, too late for Kutrieb’s National League South champions.
“We dominated the first half and should have been a minimum of 4-1 up,” claimed Kutrieb after his side’s 3-2 defeat.
“That’s when you need to kill teams and that’s what I said to the boys.
“Sometimes it can happen, the second half slightly changed as we went 2-1 down with a handball - I don’t know how he could miss it. I’m furious about it as it’s easy to see for everyone in the stadium but it is what it is.
“We came back a little bit too late, maybe five minutes earlier and it would be a big finish. I said all the time stay patient and score the second goal. We had a massive chance to have scored it (earlier).”
Welling’s first two goals both came from set-pieces, and Kutrieb was not impressed with his side’s defending.
It was the second away game in a row that the Fleet have lost 3-2 and only the fourth time this season that they’ve shipped more than two goals in a league game.
“It was not good enough,” he added. “We can’t concede three goals. I don’t know how many times we’ve conceded three goals this season but I would say less than five times.
“It’s not good enough because against this team you don’t need to concede three goals as you could see there was nothing apart from set pieces. You need to defend them better, what we haven’t done.
“We were a bit sloppy in defending, we gave the ball away on the 18-yard box and after the game I can say this was game over.
“Football is 90 minutes and when you come away with a 3-2 defeat, congratulations to Welling because they’ve obviously done something better than us and this is taking their chances.”
Kutrieb admitted his squad is being stretched with Dominic Poleon suspended and injuries to Omari Sterling-James, Franklin Domi and even Christian N’Guessan, who came on as a late substitute.
“It was literally ever player who could play was involved,” said the Fleet boss. “Dom was out suspended, Franklin was a concussion and might be back next week, Omari we didn’t want to risk.
“This is the time of the year if you’ve already achieved something, you just need to make sure that you don’t risk too much. With Christian we didn’t want to risk anything as well as a precaution.”
