Daryl McMahon says Ebbsfleet will need to fight if they are to get anything from Saturday’s game at Sutton United.

The U’s, who pipped Fleet to the National League South title in 2015/16, have made a strong start to this campaign and sit fourth in the table.

McMahon’s side are five points back in 12th and they travel to Surrey on the back of a 1-0 home defeat to Torquay on Tuesday night.

The manager said: "We dust ourselves down and get ready for Sutton on Saturday because I’m sure that’ll be another tough one.

"We know Sutton well and it’ll be a fight. They’ll be direct, they’ll win seconds, they’ll get it wide, they’ll put crosses into the box.

"You’ve got to show some balls when you go to Sutton. You’ve got to put your body on the line, win headers and tackles and if you don’t show that desire, you won’t win.

"The players will produce it but they have to want to produce it as well. You can’t talk about it, you have to go and do it.

"They’re all capable players but we were poor on Tuesday from a decent run we’ve been on in terms of performances."

Results elsewhere in midweek mean Fleet are still only three points outside the play-off places.

McMahon said: "You can over-analyse it but we’ve seen far better teams than us under-perform.

"Manchester United losing at Huddersfield on Saturday – who’d have thought that would happen?”

"The players and us are not robots. On Tuesday we were underperforming from the level we normally hit, that everyone expects us to hit, but we’re only human and we’ll get back on the training ground on Thursday."