Tonbridge Angels manager Craig Nelson says quick learning curve required as new-look side adapt to National League South football

Manager Craig Nelson is looking for an improvement when Tonbridge visit AFC Totton this weekend.

Angels started the National League South season with a 0-0 draw at home to Slough.

New boss Nelson was pleased with the clean sheet but less so the overall performance in front of a big home crowd of 1,061.

“I think we could have been better in possession,” said Nelson, who described his Longmead reception as a “humbling experience” as fans unfurled a giant banner behind the goal.

“With what we’d worked on, if we’d executed the game plan, we would have stood a better chance of winning.

“All in all, we’re probably lucky to get a draw but you take it because in future you’re not likely to have eight or nine people underperform.

“The boys wouldn’t have been happy with their performance but looking at the positives, it’s a clean sheet on the board and we move on.

“First 10-15 minutes we were excellent and if we’d continued to replicate that intensity and the way we played, we’d have been dangerous.

“I think we made one or two mistakes and then everyone started.

“It was like pass the mistake on and that might be a nervousness thing, it might be the intensity of the league. Who knows?

“But we’ll try and make sure we don’t replicate those mistakes game after game and we’ll be OK because when we did get it right, we looked good.

“The boys defended amazingly well as a unit so there are small pluses but from an overall performance perspective, we expected a little bit better.”

Nelson was in charge at Glebe, three levels below National League South, just two years ago, while last season he was in the Isthmian Premier with Lewes.

He’s made the jump to Step 2 along with a number of his summer signings, who will learn from the Slough game.