Manager Danny Searle will remind his Ebbsfleet players they need to play with more purpose following the midweek defeat at Aldershot.

The Fleet took an early lead but lost their way midway through the first half before falling to a 4-1 defeat in the National League.

Searle felt there were times when his side needlessly put themselves under pressure in the first half.

“There were a lot of things across the pitch where we could have been better and we have to put it down as a really bad night at the office,” said the Fleet boss.

“The disappointing thing for me was that we knew what they were good at doing and we worked on stopping that. For 20 minutes, we did stop that. But then we switch off for some reason and stopped doing what was getting us success.

“I thought we messed around with the ball a little too much at the back at times, and unnecessarily so. We’re all clear that we want to keep possession of the football but there were times when we were in good, positive positions and we ended up back with our goalkeeper.

“That’s not what we’re about, I don’t want us to be about that. I want us to affect the final third. They’re a very good side and they’ve got a chance (of winning promotion) to be fair to them.

“We need to pass the ball with more purpose. There were times in the game where we made passes for passes sake and we haven’t really been doing that.

“We’ve been quite effective going forward and we need to look after the ball a bit better.”

The first two Aldershot goals both came from short corners.

It’s been unlike Searle’s team to give soft goals away. Having conceded just four goals in his first six games, that tally was doubled in just 90 minutes.

“We’ve been very good from set plays and we’ve backed players to defend in one-v-one situations which we failed to do,” bemoaned Searle.

“We didn’t look after players, we didn’t mark our man and we allowed players to walk around in our penalty area which is always going to be a danger to your team.

“It was us that allowed them to gain momentum, we made some weird decisions and switched off a couple of times.

“We talked about it in the dressing room, I felt that they outrun us tonight. They worked harder than us and that’s the first time since I’ve been in the building that that’s happened and that needs to be eradicated straight away. That’s not acceptable.

“One thing you can always guarantee is work ethic and work rate and I thought we came second in that department.

“Almost all their goals came from us being in good positions and that’s not good enough. We need to hold our hands up.

“We’ve been on a great run and at some point it was going to end. We need to dust ourselves off. It’s done, and we move on.”

When Aldershot were reduced to 10 men in the second half, Ebbsfleet put on another striker in a bid to claw back the goal difference.

But they never really created much despite the added presence of the in-form Dominic Samuel on the pitch.

“We didn’t get any momentum back,” added Searle. “We put three forwards on the pitch at one point and I don’t think we put the ball in the box.

Report: Aldershot 4-1 Ebbsfleet

“The only chances we actually got were from their mistakes, we didn’t create them. That was obviously disappointing.

“You look at the whole game overall, there was a massive momentum shift in the first half and we had a chance to nullify it and get in level at half-time, and we didn’t achieve that.

“I know this place well and if you allow them to attack their favourite end with momentum, they’re going to be a threat to you. I also thought we had the chances to make the game very close.”