Ebbsfleet manager Dennis Kutrieb insists he’s more frustrated than anyone by his side’s poor run of form.

The Fleet return to National League action at Hartlepool on Saturday but sit just one point above the relegation zone.

Kutrieb’s men have won just one of their last 11 league games, although they will be buoyed by a 5-0 Kent Senior Cup win over Cray Wanderers since their last National League match, a 1-0 defeat at home to Dagenham.

There’s been plenty of moans outside of the camp - but Kutrieb ensures he takes no notice of those on social media.

“I hear about other people, you can always have it on social media,” said the Fleet boss.

“That’s the easiest thing in life, to criticise someone on social media because you can hide - it’s normal. But I don’t read it so I don’t get it.

“On the streets or after the game when I go in the bar, everyone’s still positive because you can see the truth is we didn’t deserve to lose against Dagenham.

“It’s not like we didn’t know what we were doing or we had no clue, we played a good game against Southend as well when we had some good moments but they’re a very good side.

“We had our chances to win the game at Fylde but went home with a 1-1 draw.

“It’s coming. Obviously, I’m the most frustrated person in the building as I desperately want to have three points for us but I don’t get much outside noise.

“The people I see face-to-face are all positive and they try to be more motivating rather than telling us we are bad or whatever. Our fans are really good in that respect.

“It’s the difference between fans and social media fans as they’ll always find something if they want to. That’s fine - we’ll never change it.

“I heard something when we lost twice against Dartford last season like ‘book a flight back to Germany’ and that’s normal on social media.

“As soon as we can be on the pitch and focus on things then it makes much more sense rather than get carried away by outside noises from social media, which I don’t read anyway.”

The two-week break from league action has also given Kutrieb a welcome chance to work with his squad on the training ground.

The Fleet have new faces to fit into their measured style of play, and Kutrieb believes the gap in their schedule after an early FA Cup exit could work in their favour.

“Maybe it’s good as I said during the tough spell of seven games in three weeks, I wanted to have some time on the pitch to work with boys which we haven’t really had,” stated Kutrieb.

“Now we’ve had two weeks on the training ground to get everyone on the same page, to get defensive things right.

“From my point of view against Dagenham we played a very good game. They have one of the best strikers in the league, he couldn’t have a chance and the goal we conceded was late and unlucky.

“We had moments where we could have scored and I went home thinking we should have won the game easily.

“I can’t get too carried away with the negatives, I need to focus on the positives and I think that’s what I can use on the training pitch. We’ve been saying we’ve done this well but we need to do these things better to get points out of the games as well.

“We need to make sure we get the things ready and every player knows exactly what we want to do. From this point of view, it’s good we can work on the training pitch as every new player can get more and more used to it.

“Players can get fitness back, like Greg Cundle, so it’s more a positive than a negative. We have very good additions now, we need to make sure we gel everyone into the group.”