Ebbsfleet manager Danny Searle admitted his players have let themselves down after a winless start to the season.

The Fleet lost their first four National League games before collecting up a creditable point with a goalless draw at Braintree on Monday.

The normally mild-mannered Searle admitted he told his players plenty of “home truths” after their 3-0 weekend loss at home to Woking, and he got the desired response with a first clean sheet of the campaign.

“As an individual, I felt let down, but they’ve let themselves down as well as they’re far better than what they’ve been showing,” said Searle.

“On Saturday there were a lot of home truths about how I feel. I’m normally very calm, I keep my individual opinions to myself, I speak to players individually and rarely speak to an individual in a group setting because that’s a respectful thing.

“But I think it needed to happen on Saturday and it did, with everything I had - and they got what I thought. That’s fine, we move on and they’ve given a performance that reacted to that.

“The message was don’t make me speak like that again, because I don’t like doing it. I want a harmonious dressing room that is on the same page. I think we’ve cleared the air and it’s a step in the right direction.

“Emotions are fantastic in football and it’s a very emotive sport as it’s a team game. Passion takes over, when you’re working in your single self you’re in charge of your emotions. But when you can’t control everything around you, it becomes a little bit difficult.

“I was emotional on Saturday, the players were emotional, and the emotions came out.

“There’s no doubt, you get home and speak to your family, you kick the door but then you have to calm yourself down and reassess.

“I brought these players here for a reason, I kept players here for a reason. We have faith in the players. It’s a relationship and if they’re going to get everything from me then I need the same back. I don’t think we’ve been getting that so far.

“If they keep giving everything and I keep giving everything then win, lose or draw, at least we can walk off the pitch with a little bit of pride in what we try to do.”

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Searle admitted it’s been a tough few weeks for him at the start of the campaign.

Despite a tough fixture list, the Fleet haven’t helped themselves and they’ll be keen to register their first win when they host FC Halifax this Saturday.

“I’m not going to stand here and pretend it hasn’t been tough, because it has been,” added the Fleet boss.

“I don’t think anyone who has seen us in pre-season would have expected us to start the way we have. It’s been a really tough start, from a fixture perspective but also as we haven’t helped ourselves.

“We went back through the goals this week and I don’t think anyone has scored a good goal against us, not one goal. Some of the finishes have been good but the actual goal itself, no-one has scored a good goal, we’ve given it away.

“That makes the clean sheet at Braintree a little more satisfying as we need to have a platform to build on, a foundation to build off and there’s no better one than not conceding.

“Performance-wise, we need to be as resilient as we were at Braintree. We’ve got a run of games which is really tough, it’s weird as you think the start of the season is tough so you look for that little break of teams and there isn’t one.

“Saturday is massive. We’ve got to show the fans that they need to turn up and support us. We deserved to be booed last time against Woking, we gave them nothing.

“On Monday we gave the fans something that made the journey worthwhile and that’s what we’ve got to continue to do, and that starts again on Saturday.”