Ebbsfleet United chief executive Damian Irvine says manager Dennis Kutrieb will be judged at the end of the season.

The Fleet sit seventh in National League South with 15 points from their first nine matches following a 1-0 derby defeat at home to Tonbridge on Saturday.

“Our measure of success is the end of the season and where we stand at the end of the season,” said Irvine.

“It’s early days, really it is for us, we’ve not had 10 games yet. We’re trying to do things a little bit differently with a new style of football.

“We always said after 10 games we’d have a bit of a measure of what needs to be done. At the end of the day, our measure of success is where we are at the end of the season.

“Whilst even with results in the last month, we’ve had some results and still not been happy because we’ve got very high standards.

“It’s fair to say we haven’t been at our best or where we want to be, but have still been banking points. That stopped today to be fair.

“We need to get back to banking points and then we’ll be happy. We work week to week and this week was a bad one for us.”

Kutrieb was appointed Fleet boss at the start of June after success at Berlin-based outfit Tennis Borussia in the fifth tier of German football.

With Irvine’s backing, Kutrieb has implemented a new style of play at Stonebridge Road. It’s seen the Fleet dominate possession in most matches but they’ve been unable to convert that into goals on a consistent basis.

However, a new squad will take time to gel and while taking one point from two home games with Maidstone and Tonbridge is not the return Ebbsfleet wanted, they are not going to change their philosophy any time soon.

“Anything that is worth doing the right way takes time,” added Irvine. “We’re very aware of that.

“We’re anti the boom or bust culture of things – throw things at it and if it doesn’t work chop and change. I think the club has been guilty of that a little bit over the years.

“We know what we need and what we’re working towards and we’ll give it all the time and patience we need to do that. We are going in the right direction, you have days like today where the result isn’t what you want but it will come.”

On the Tonbridge defeat, he added: “We’re disappointed with the result, as we know the supporters will be and all the players are.

“Two points which have been consistent for us in the last month – dominating possession and dominating teams. Things going well to plans that have been worked on during the week but that end product in terms of being ruthless and getting the ball in the net in the final third hasn’t been working and it wasn’t working today as well.

“That soft goal to concede 30 seconds before half-time was telling. We’re very aware that dominating and playing better than the opponents is all well and good but you have to get the three points and you have to make it happen.

“We’ve lost a derby game, we weren’t at our best on Tuesday either for a draw. They aren’t the standards we expect, and not the standards the players expect either.

“While it’s not clicking at the moment there’s a lot of things that are. We’re a work in progress and we’re up there at the top end of the table, and nowhere near where we want to be performance-wise.

“In context, that’s not a bad place to be because we know there’s still so much more room to improve and so much more in us and we’ve got a lot of time to make it happen.”

Fleet boss Kutrieb missed the Tonbridge game as he followed the club’s internal Covid protocols.

However, Kutrieb still picked the line-up before the game and was in regular communication with the coaching staff.

“Covid protocols are standard throughout our club, whether you are the manager, you work in the ticket office or you’re a player,” added Irvine.

“Isolation periods for various different Covid reasons happens regularly at football clubs these days. Unfortunately, it fell on a matchday for Dennis and he was obviously disappointed not to be here but there’s nothing to worry about and he’ll be back next week.

“It’s not out of the ordinary for us but I appreciate it might look like that from the outside looking in, it just so happens it was the manager. We’re lucky to have streaming these days and pretty good technology.”

• Report: Ebbsfleet 0 Tonbridge 1

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