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Ebbsfleet boss Dennis Kutrieb blasted his team’s defending after they suffered a 3-0 home defeat to Havant on Saturday.
The Fleet returned to National League South action for the first time since November 21 but they were caught cold by a Havant team, who justified their pre-season billing as title contenders on this display.
Kutrieb felt his players gave them a helping hand, however, pointing to errors from centre-back duo Sefa Kahraman and Jake Goodman.
“Football is always collective but our centre-backs, both of them, were not good enough,” said Kutrieb.
“We made easy mistakes. The second goal was an easy mistake by Sefa Kahraman, the third goal was an easy mistake by Jake Goodman.
“It’s a little bit like an own goal because (when) you give the ball away you can concede goals and they had the confidence to punish us. They didn’t need many chances to score their goals.
“The problem was our defending was not good enough.”
It’s three games without a goal for the Fleet, after failing to find the net against Maidstone, Tonbridge and now Havant.
Kutrieb could see the frustration in his players and believes the only way they can turn it around is through hard work.
“In football you have to work hard and keep going,” he said. “It’s frustrating but not personally.
“It’s frustrating for the boys, I can feel how disappointed they are. That’s hard to see for me as I want to see them happy, I want to see them lucky and they are only lucky when they win games. They had a good week in training but they didn’t grab the chance to win the game.
“You have to work harder and you have to work more. You have to score more goals than normal in every training session, you have to get used to putting the ball into the back of the net.
“They need to see it’s possible. If it’s possible in training sessions, then it’s possible in games as well.
“We were not sharp enough, it was a disappointing loss for us.
“We had two weeks off and they were very sharp after six games in the last two or three weeks. It felt that they were fresher and sharper.
“We had a few good chances but when you concede such easy goals you can’t win games.”
One player that did impress for Ebbsfleet was Will Wood.
The left-sided defender, who has also operated ahead of Bobby-Joe Taylor in midfield, found himself deployed as a right midfielder and was Fleet’s best player before he ran out of steam in the second half.
“He did well,” said Kutrieb. “He was injured and he is not ready for 90 minutes but he was very good, especially in the first half when he created some good openings for us so I was happy with him.
“We have to be adaptable and try different things for different opponents.
“We can create something different when we have a right-footed player on the left-wing and a left-footed player on the right wing.
“We can create more and it was a tactical thing. For Woody, it worked really well.”
