7:16pm Sunday 21st March 2010
By Jonathan Moyes
LIAM Daish described Ebbsfleet’s 6-1 humbling to Luton Town on Saturday as their worst performance during his five years at Stonebridge Road.
Fleet were outclassed by the Hatters in a second-half horror show, which saw Claude Gnakpa grab a hat-trick and Tom Craddock, Kevin Gallen and Matthew Barnes-Homer all help themselves to goals.
It was even a Luton player who put Ebbsfleet in front, with Janos Kovacs’ scoring an own goal in the first half.
Boss Daish was clearly upset by the second half performance, saying: “This is the worst result of my tenure in the five years I’ve been here and it hurts.”
He rued what he saw as a missed opportunity for Fleet to grab a second unlikely win against promotion hopefuls Luton, after Ebbsfleet beat them 3-2 at Kenilworth Road in January.
“We didn’t take the bit of fortune that came our way with the goal and that’s the disappointing thing,” he said.
A victory would have given Ebbsfleet a massive fillip heading into crucial games against Salisbury City, Eastbourne Borough, Rushden & Diamonds and Gateshead, which will determine their Blue Square Premier status next season.
And Daish said the second half hammering will give him an indication of the character of his squad by the way they will respond to this setback..
He added: “You find out how a defeat like this affects moral in the camp.
“You find out who are your men, who are your strong characters, who are your weak characters and who are the ones who want to put things right quickly.
“This is where you find out about people.” Ebbsfleet would have faced Chester at Stonebridge Road next Saturday but because City’s fixtures have been expunged from the record books, Fleet are not in action until Good Friday when they travel to Salisbury City.
Daish believes this break of almost a fortnight will be a good marker in evaluating whether Ebbsfleet can survive because their relegation rivals will have played some of their games in hand during this period.
The Fleet gaffer will no doubt hope that his Stonebridge Road side can repeat their first half performance against Luton in their remaining games, from which there were plenty of positives, and learn the lessons from their second half capitulation.
He said: “I thought we did alright first-half.
“We played well, we were comfortable and we competed.
“I didn’t see the second half coming like that.
“Two goals in quick succession straight after the break has asked real questions of our character and on Saturday, we didn’t have that.
“We all felt sorry for ourselves at that point.
“Luton were going to come out at us. I made it clear at half-time they were going to come out and the first ten minutes were so important.”
Daish added: “We had to clear our lines properly and stretch the play and we had to get in behind.
“But we’ve played too much in front and two of their goals have come from our free-kicks where it’s been easily defended and banged straight at our back four. We’ve given them goals.
“The third goal was a free header.
“We didn’t get the ball into areas. We made their centre halves look like world beaters.
“It was a bit like men against boys in the second half.”
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