Ebbsfleet United manager Dennis Kutrieb says defenders not doing themselves justice after string of errors

Ebbsfleet manager Dennis Kutrieb admitted he’s been left annoyed by some of their early-season defending.

The Fleet’s mixed start to life in the National League continued last weekend with an impressive 3-0 win over Kidderminster followed by a 3-2 defeat at Barnet on Monday.

Three clean sheets have yielded three victories so far but the Fleet have also conceded nine goals in three defeats.

“It’s very annoying because they can do it,” said Kutrieb. “On Monday, we just switched off.

“The first goal was nearly half-time and maybe we switched off already. The second one we were a bit unorganised. The third goal was bad as it was our own possession. We made a stupid decision and then I don’t know if he was offside or not.

“They weren’t all the same goals but we need to find the right backline which is able to defend man-for-man because you could see against Gateshead it was Stephen Wearne who scored three goals, on Monday it was Nicke Kabamba.

“We need to make sure if the opponent has a very good player that we keep him out of the game. Apart from that we defended quite well but if there is a good player, we need to make sure he can’t score too many or easy goals.

“That’s where we have to learn and improve. When you score two goals away from home you need to make sure you win the game of football.”

Kutrieb believes his side should have a greater return than nine points from their first six games.

“We have three wins and three defeats and that’s not good enough,” added the Fleet boss. “We have to be honest there.

“When you put the six games together, we could and should have more points on the board. This is the reality and now we have to make sure that we learn from it.

“We have to take things on board that we have to improve