Six-shooters Ebbsfleet United enjoyed a comfortable victory over Welling United that left manager Dennis Kutrieb smiling.

“The first forty-five minutes were very impressive, very good, but it’s tough to say if it was our best performance.” he enthused. “At the end of the day, if you score your goals it always looks good but to be honest, I saw a few situations in the first half where they (Welling) were not too bad, to be honest. Even when you are five-nil down there were a few parts of the game where they passed the ball around, we didn’t do our pressing in the right way. 

“Of course they couldn’t damage us, I don’t know if they had a shot on target but at the end of the day we can’t get carried away because of the result especially in the second half. You could see we did not have the same determination like the first half then you score only one goal so it was a very impressive first half because of five goals but I wouldn’t say it was by far the best performance.”

They started quickly, as they usually do and Kutrieb said “We said we must be there straight away on the front foot and be on their toes for the first ten/fifteen minutes because we knew that they would have the respect. They will sit a little bit deeper. That’s what we expected and that’s what we prepared for.

“We approached this week saying we won’t rotate too much so we changed only one player. We had to make a change for (Jack) Paxman because he was suspended for this match.”

There was a healthy of attendance of 1,302 in the Cufflink Stadium and another large crowd anticipated on Tuesday when they host Maidstone United. Kutrieb couldn’t hide his excitement saying “It’s perfect. That’s exactly why the boys are playing football because they want to play in front of crowds. They want to play in front of as many fans as possible. 

“Hopefully we can see it for a long time, not only this game, because you never know what’s going to happen with the virus, if there’s ‘behind closed doors’ again, or whatever. I see the numbers in Germany and they are really concerned again at the moment so I’m aware of it and am not sure if we’ll go through the whole season so I will enjoy the time here on Tuesday with all the fans and the boys will enjoy it definitely as well. 

He continued “We need to be sure that we have the right preparation but there’s time for a small celebration because we can’t take it for granted that we will score six goals in a derby against Welling. If we get a win on Tuesday, I won’t take it for granted and would be really happy about it.

Although, the Fleet are well placed in the table, and are on a great run, Kutrieb knows that there is always room for improvement. “There’s always lots to do because you can be better and better and better. There’s no limit. They can do better because they know exactly what they do right and what they do wrong but I don’t want to be the crazy German who after a six-nil win says I’m not happy.

“We have three games in hand but it means nothing. We need to win on Tuesday and next Tuesday and next Tuesday. At the moment we’re second in the table and it’s fine but it’s one part of the season and we haven’t achieved anything so far but I’m happy at the moment because we got the points. We deserved to get the points and that’s the main point for me.” 

Picture supplied by Dave Budden.