Ebbsfleet United manager Kevin Watson has welcomed the arrival of former Gillingham boss Steve Lovell.

Fleet named Lovell as director of football just hours before the 1-1 home draw with Dagenham on New Year’s Day.

Lovell’s remit includes player recruitment and Watson is happy to have some help.

“I needed someone to help in terms of recruiting, yeah,” said Watson.

“To get players in where you are, either loan or permanent, isn’t an easy job.

“Steve has a good network of people that he knows, he’s worked in the game a long time. I had to chat to him before the game and I’m sure he’ll be of benefit to us.

“We do need livening up and freshening up. I’ve said all along that these draws need to be turned into wins.”

Ebbsfleet conceded another late goal to be pegged back by Dagenham and they are now seven points from safety with 18 games left to play.

“It’s as frustrated as I’ve been,” said Watson. “Out of six draws, we’ve been in front in five.

“I know what I’ve got in this group, we do need to add to it, which is why Steve is at the club.

“I had a brief chat with Steve before the game – for about 20, 25 minutes – about what I think we need. And we’ll take it from there.

“Steve has come into the club to help recruiting wise and to identify players that I need. We’ve chatted for a while about what I need, that’s not changed.

“Steve is another body to help with that which takes a bit of the pressure off myself to do everything if you like.

“We identified positions in the brief chat we had and he was in agreement with me, which was good. That’s what we’ll be looking for.”

• Ebbsfleet appoint Lovell as director of football
• Report: Ebbsfleet 1 Dagenham 1

Lovell watched from the directors box as Fleet were held for the second time in a week by lowly Dagenham.

Watson felt it was pretty obvious where they went wrong having dominated the first half.

“First half I thought we were excellent, second half I thought we were poor,” added the Fleet boss.

“They came out with a way of playing that was very direct (in the second half). Every ball that went in their half they returned it with interest.

“The reason we couldn’t get out was because we still wanted to be Man City, like we were in the first half.

“We’re trying to overplay when they’ve got five at the top of the pitch and are just smashing it at us.

“Surely that tells you that they must be deficient somewhere else but we’re still trying to play out when they’ve got six, seven players at the top of the pitch.

“We need to be clever enough to know there must be space behind them. All too often we tried fiddly little balls into the middle of the pitch, they got cut out, we made wrong decisions and were slashing at things.

“The reason why players play at higher levels is because they make better decisions more often.

“In terms of technical ability there isn’t much difference, I’ve got some very good technical players, but the higher you go the more they make better decisions. It’s as simple as that.

“We don’t make anything easy for ourselves. The little man on their shoulder that tells them one goal is enough needs to be brushed aside because human nature at the minute means we’re scoring and we’re thinking that’s enough.”

Watson refused to lay the blame at any individual player but conceded that they cannot afford to pass up golden opportunities in front of goal.

He added: “I’m not going to single players out (but) Alex Reid has a golden opportunity to score the second goal – it has to go in. Gozie at the end (as well).

“Yes, they smashed balls forward but they didn’t have too many clear-cut chances. We had the two best chances of the game. You don’t get six, seven, eight, nine chances.”

Ebbsfleet travel to leaders Barrow on Saturday.

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