Ebbsfleet boss Dennis Kutrieb was left as frustrated as the club's supporters following Saturday's home defeat to Slough.

The visitors deservedly ran out 2-1 winners at Stonebridge Road and while Kutrieb knew they paid the price for Chris Solly’s second-half howler, his side’s wasteful finishing in the first half did not go unnoticed.

“We need to keep working hard and not lose our heads,” he said. “It will come, it’s frustrating for the fans and frustrating for me.

“I’m on the touchline and think here we go again but it’s football. If you don’t make the mistakes then maybe you score a later winner, and everything is fine and perfect.

“But when you concede such a goal (the second goal) then it’s tough to come back. We tried, we bombarded them but it was too late and not good enough.

“The biggest criticism from my point is that we should have scored in the first half, Will Wood three chances, Shaq, Dom, so there were enough. If we score then, the game looks a bit different.

“When you don’t get the right result, of course it’s a step back. In games there are different times and we conceded when it was not good timing, even the second one was not good as we were just back in the game.

“There were still 30 minutes to go, they got another lift and they tried to defend for the rest of the game. We couldn’t make our game the way we wanted to play. We played too many long balls because they chased us down and they did it in a good way, so credit to them.

“When you want to be in the mix when you want to be up the table, you need to manage it and put the ball the back of the net. So first half, I don't know how many clear-cut chances we had but we need to come back in the game.

“If we’re 1-1 at half-time it’s a little bit different and you don’t have the feeling all the time that you need to chase and score. We got the equaliser and then we conceded such an easy goal and had to go again. When you want to be (at the) top, you need to put the ball in the net.”

It was a vast change from Fleet’s impressive midweek demolition of St Albans.

At times this season, they blown their opponents away but Slough proved tough to play against.

“I try to see it from game to game and focus on what happens during the game,” said Kutrieb.

“I can see during the week at training that there are no problems at all but every game is different.

“The opponent was strong and we have to take it, even if they are not top of the table. They gave us a great fight, were all over the pitch and then it was game management.

“We were not as confident as we were on Tuesday (against St Albans). We go long, win some headers, win second balls and created from there. I think we played with a plan B but it didn’t work out how we wanted it to.

“It's not like we dominated them for 90 minutes and had 15 chances and they didn’t know how they got the win. If we don’t score early, then it can end like it did.”