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Ebbsfleet United owner Dr Abdulla Al-Humaidi says manager Daryl McMahon has his support

Ebbsfleet manager Daryl McMahon still has the backing of owner Dr Abdulla Al-Humaidi.

A run of one win in seven games has put the pressure on McMahon, whose side were denied promotion in the National League South play-off final last season.

But Dr Al-Humaidi, who will be at Stonebridge Road for the visit of Wealdstone on Saturday, insists McMahon is the right man for the job.

Ebbsfleet United chairman Dr Abdulla Al-Humaidi Picture: Andy Payton
Ebbsfleet United chairman Dr Abdulla Al-Humaidi Picture: Andy Payton

He said: "Daryl is a very good manager. I’ll be speaking to him this Saturday at the match and he has my support as usual.

"Our goal is shared, it’s to get promoted. We’re working together rather than pointing fingers or blaming anyone.

"Even considering what happened last season, Daryl has done a great job. We have to take into consideration that last year was his first proper year in management.

"Learning from mistakes and not doing them again, that’s the key. There’s no point, whether it be Daryl, myself or anyone at the club, doing mistakes over and over again.

"Everybody does mistakes. It’s about appreciating your mistakes, learning from them and making sure it doesn’t happen again."

McMahon hadn’t suffered back-to-back league defeats as Fleet boss until this week, when his side followed up a 1-0 loss at Gosport by going down 2-1 at Chelmsford.

He said: "It’s my first time being in this kind of situation. Last year wasn’t plain sailing but it was a good time.

"Now we’re under a bit of pressure. I’m under a bit of pressure but I won’t be shirking anything.

"I’m ready to take the club forward and you can see by the performance of the players where their heads are at.

"We’ve got to keep working hard. These are the difficult times in football. We’ve been used to winning and playing well and at the minute, we’re not. We need to turn it around
quickly."

Ebbsfleet United manager Daryl McMahon Picture: Martin Apps
Ebbsfleet United manager Daryl McMahon Picture: Martin Apps

Ebbsfleet won 11 of their first 12 games last season and were top for seven months before being caught by eventual champions Sutton.

They dropped into the play-offs and conceded in the last 30 seconds of the final before suffering penalty heartbreak at the hands of Maidstone.

Dr Al-Humaidi said: "There’s still a long way to go. Last year we had the perfect start and ended up where we ended up.

"It’s useful having this set of results now. It gives us the opportunity to identify our weaknesses and fix them.

"In everything in life, there’s two sides. You can take it negatively and just complain or you can take it positively and identify weaknesses and fix them.

"From the outside, things might look simple. Because we have a good budget, people take things for granted and think you get promoted automatically. It’s not like that.

"There are lots of problems with players, injuries and managing those players off the pitch.

"Because I’m close to everything, I appreciate the last three seasons and I’m fairly hopeful that this season we’ll get promoted."

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