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Ebbsfleet manager Dennis Kutrieb won’t spend too long dissecting their first defeat of the season.
The Fleet were unbeaten in all competitions for the first 20 games of their campaign but that run came to a half against an impressive Tonbridge Angels side on Saturday in National League South.
“Obviously, it’s frustrating for me as it’s not necessary to lose this game when we were the much better side but it doesn’t matter,” said Kutrieb. “We have certain expectations and that is to win those games but it was not possible today as we didn’t put it in the back of the net, as simple as that.
“You can’t be too negative about it. If you come away with a defeat because you had no chances and no idea what to do, they parked the bus and you can’t come through because they defended well then it would be a different story. I would be concerned.
“But I’m positive because we’ve had the chances. I can’t say our attacking players are not able to score goals as they are outstanding goalscorers but sometimes it’s not falling for them.
“If the goalkeeper is lucky to get the ball with it hitting his face, it’s football, it can happen. Obviously, we don’t want that but we just need to make sure we do better in the next game.
“We need to stay positive, there’s nothing to worry about as we have had the chances and we played a good game with high intensity. The substitutions worked well as well, Toby Edser played a good game, Franklin Domi played a good game and Shaq Coulthirst had two or three situations when he came on. That’s all positive and the injured players are coming back this week.”
It needed a man-of-the-match display from Jon Henly in the Tonbridge goal to deny Ebbsfleet.
There were other chances wasted, thought, with Dominic Poleon and Rakish Bingham both shooting over from opportunities they’d normally convert.
“It was just unlucky,” responded Kutrieb when asked if his forwards snatched at their chances. “Dom was on the line and hit the goalkeeper at his face then it’s just unlucky and that sometimes happens.
“In the first half we had another big chance when Dom put it over the stand, one with Raks where he put it over the stand, one with Toby that was cleared off the line so there was a minimum of five 100 per cent chances where we had to score, not ones where if you were a little bit lucky then you score.
“Sometimes you have more luck and score, sometimes you’re unlucky and that’s how football works. You just need to make sure if you have this amount of chances that you score enough to win this game.
“Obviously, if you make easy mistakes then you get punished, like we got punished for the second goal. We’re human beings, it can happen. It’s not happening a lot this season but we need to be more ruthless in front of goal.”
The result brings to an end Ebbsfleet’s unbeaten start to the season.
Kutrieb wants his players to turn that negative into a positive.
“We were aware of that,” he said. “If you know this feeling from today, how it hurts to lose a game then maybe it gives us more awareness for the next games to make sure you don’t get this feeling if it’s not necessary.
“If a team is much better than you, if they outplay you, and don’t give you any chances, or they score a lucky goal then it’s football, it can happen. But not if you dominate the game and are not able to get something out of the game.
“In some cases I think we should have played quicker, and switched the sides quicker. But you could see they were getting more and more tired, so we played them tired. That’s another big point for us where we could make pressure in the second half.
“They are a good team and they know what they’re doing. It’s not always on us, sometimes it is on our opponent as well. You could see both wings were defended well against us in the first half but second half both wings were turning up and sometimes you can’t do it for 90 minutes as the opponent plays a big part as well.”
