Ebbsfleet United manager Steve Brown was critical of his side’s performance after they suffered a 2-1 home defeat to Hayes & Yeading on Saturday.

After an even first half, defensive mistakes allowed Hayes to take a two-goal lead before Anthony Acheampong grabbed a late consolation.

The result leaves the Fleet six points off leaders Basingstoke, who have a game in hand, and Brown revealed he expected more from his side.

He said: “I thought Hayes came with a game plan to stifle and not give us many opportunities.

“If they’ve watched us over the past couple of weeks, they’ll have seen a team that’s created a lot of chances, and in all fairness to them they did limit us to the least amount of chances we’ve had in the last three or four games.

“At 0-0 at half-time, I felt we’d have a great opportunity to take the lead with Dean Rance’s header that was well-saved.

“But in truth I felt we’d push on in the second half, but actually it went the other way.”

Brown added: “We were poor in the second half against Hemel and we were poor in the second half today, despite the ending to the game where we pressed and we pushed.

“We’ve conceded two goals in the second half and the first goal was a good goal, but the second was a poor one from our perspective so I have to pick the bones out of that and ask the players to do far, far better.

“If you’re going to be serious about being in the play-offs and pushing for the automatic promotion spot, you can’t have too many performances like that.”

The manager was then asked to put his finger on what had gone wrong at the weekend.

Brown said: “I just think it was a flat performance.

“When we needed to pass the ball quickly, we didn’t do so.

“And when we needed to move forward quickly, we didn’t anticipate anything or read anything.

“When we were in good positions, was the movement in front of the ball quick enough? No.

“Where we’ve been really good recently is creating things and opening up the opposition.

“Today there didn’t seem to be the energy, or the movement, or the understanding. It’s come out of left field a little bit.”

The manager also felt his side just aren’t getting the rub of the green in terms of results, although he admitted that wasn’t the case against Hayes & Yeading.

Brown added: “I think we’ve been terrific performance-wise recently without picking up the points we’ve deserved.

“The 0-0 against Eastbourne should have been a win, and the 1-1 at Hemel we did enough to win the game through the amount of chances we created.

“You can’t say that about today.

“We’ve had opportunities, but we haven’t created that many chances today, it’s just been a really flat performance.

“I’ve no idea where it’s come from because I think in terms of where we have been, in terms of tempo and creating opportunities, we’ve been first class.”

The result also means it is now four competitive games without a win for the Fleet, although Brown said he is not reading too much into that.

He said: “I can turn it around and say we were five league games without losing, with three wins and two draws.

“So you can chuck that stat at me, but we were also five unbeaten in the league.

“That’s our first league loss at home since January 1, so you can chuck stats and use them any way you like, but that’s our first loss at Stonebridge Road in the league since January 1.

“Am I concerned we’ve drawn two and lost one in the league?

“I’m not happy about that, but is it a concern?

“It is in as much as we have to go to Staines and, in my opinion, win the game.

“But we were two games without a win if you want to put it that way - and I wanted to win today - so nothing changes in that respect.”

Brown added: “I see this as a huge disappointment in as much as I’ve come here today expecting us to win.

“No disrespect to Hayes & Yeading, but this should have been a win for me. I’ve not come out of it with the win, or the draw, we’ve got beaten.

“I’ve just said in the dressing room that I can take getting beaten, I can take the performance against Basingstoke and getting beaten, even though I’m not happy about it, but today we’ve lost and I’ve not enjoyed the performance we’ve put on either.

“That’s when it starts to become an issue for me.”

The Fleet now travel to Staines on Saturday, with Brown revealing he will monitor Matt Godden’s fitness after the striker picked up a knee injury in training before deciding whether to bring in a loan player.

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