Ebbsfleet United manager Steve Brown was left frustrated after his side let in a late equaliser in Saturday’s 1-1 draw at Hemel Hempstead.

After dominating the opening stages and taking the lead with a Charlie Sheringham header, it looked like Fleet may have had an easy afternoon, but a toothless second half display cost them dearly.

The second half performance left Brown unhappy and feeling his side had dropped two points.

He said: “I don’t see how you can view it any other way.

“Look at it this way - if you create one chance and you come off 1-1, you tend to say it’s a point gained.

“Today, if you can’t watch that first half an hour and see how terrific we were and that we should have been three or 4-0 up.

“We put so much effort and energy into that first half that the game, realistically, should have been ours.

“We’re just not converting those chances and it’s costing us. It’s a confidence thing.

“All I know is from a manager’s perspective, we work hard on the training ground to create those chances.”

 Brown added: “It’s not just about the strikers, either, as we’ve had some midfielders in good positions today that haven’t worked the keeper.

“It’s not just about the forwards, but we do work in training on finishing and movement.

“When they find the back of the net with their chances, everything’s going swimmingly.

“But when they miss four or five chances in a game and you come out 1-1, we have to analyse and dwell on the negative, which is we’ve missed far too many opportunities.”

Brown also revealed he feels his side are unnerved if they are unable to kill a game off, with this the second match in succession in which they have conceded late goals after spurning numerous chances.

He explained: “There was nervousness to us today.

“If you look at the Hayes & Yeading and Farnborough games, there was no nervousness.

“But today for some reason – I don’t know if it was because of the end of the first half, where they had a good 10 minute spell – we came out to protect what we had, rather than trying to gain.

“Forget the fear factor, though, as we hit the crossbar twice and their keeper has made two world class saves and goals make a huge difference to games.

“If you go 2-0 up, it breaks your opponent, as it’s no longer just one goal to get back into the game.

“We’re missing opportunities and goalkeepers are having very good games against us.”

Brown added: “When it’s only 1-0, your players tend to not want to be that player who makes the mistake to allow the opposition to equalise, so nervousness creeps in.

“That seemed to happen in the second 45, as we didn’t really get the ball down and pass it like we did in the first half.

“Things that were working in the first half didn’t seem to work so well in the second half in terms of winning possession in the right areas.

“We gave the ball away too much, but we still created six chances to win the game and you can’t keep creating that many chances and coming off with a point, or a loss like last week.”

Fleet are at home to Hayes & Yeading on Saturday (3pm).