Daryl McMahon kept his Ebbsfleet players in the changing-room for almost half an hour after they lost 1-0 at home to Torquay on Tuesday night.

The Gulls arrived second-bottom in the National League and without an away win all season but they deservedly inflicted Fleet's second home defeat of the campaign.

McMahon warned his players Torquay were a better side than their league position suggested but the message didn't seem to get through.

"It’s so far from what we’ve been doing," he said. "That’s the curve ball it gives you, when you don’t expect a performance like that - and then it got a bit panicky. I don’t know why.

"It’s October and we’re at home to Torquay.

"I’ve said this a million times, we’re in a position where I want us to be competitive and finish as high as we can but there’s no pressure on the club to do anything. Just relax and play and I thought tonight we didn’t.

"It was sloppy, which is unlike us. Sometimes when you’re not having the best of games you’ve got to hit a default button and get it in behind them and get up the pitch, not play risky.

"The goal summed it up, from two risky bits of play from us that we didn’t need to do, that we spoke about at half-time.

"Don’t get me wrong, Torquay are a good side and they’re well set up but they didn’t beat us, we’ve beaten ourselves, in my opinion.

"Tonight and against Macclesfield we might have beaten ourselves but the only team that’s beaten us is Aldershot. Nothing against Torquay, they’re a good side, but we beat ourselves."

The closest Fleet came to scoring was when Torquay keeper Vincent Dorel spilled Jack Powell's free-kick in the second half although the officials decided the ball hadn't crossed the line.

So did the home players think it was in?

"I didn’t ask them to be honest," McMahon said. We didn’t deserve a goal.

"What happened in the changing-room will stay in the changing-room but they’re good players and we’ll dust ourselves down and get ready for Saturday."