Kai McKenzie-Lyle’s last gasp penalty save resulted in Ebbsfleet United and Welling United sharing a point in a feisty encounter.

After the game, Ebbsfleet manager Dennis Kutrieb gave his thoughts. “It was a great game of football.” he said. “You could see so many (twists and) turns during the game. If we had scored the penalty at the end, I would have been happy, obviously.

“I’m disappointed but honestly my feeling was that in this game of football we wouldn’t score this penalty. This was my initial feeling because there was so much in the game. It’s typical football I would say.”

However, he wasn’t too down and said “We’re still unbeaten. I think on paper they’re the strongest side we’ve played so far and that’s what I told the boys during the week. Even when they (Welling) say ‘we have 19 new players’ and all these things there’s so much experience, league experience. They’re definitely a very good side and we knew what we had to expect and we take this point and now we move on to Tuesday.”

After Welling went down to ten and then nine men, they broke up the flow of the game. Kutrieb was not surprised saying “That’s normal, that’s how football works. The referee has to deal with it, the linesman has to deal with it. It’s not my job. It’s not my players job.

“Our players job is to try and get the ball and play. Try and get the ball and score goals, and not to concede obviously. We need to get on with it and try to keep focussed. I think at times we got a little bit too distracted instead of playing our game and just trying to move the ball quickly.”

Ebbsfleet were awarded the penalty in additional stoppage time but Kutrieb felt that the game should have been won by then. “In the end it was a penalty but even before we had enough chances but at the end of the day this is football.” he said.

“It’s why we love the game. For the fans it was a great game of football. The support was amazing today. I’m looking forward to playing straight away again on Tuesday because we want to do better.”

Leading the league can present extra pressures but Kutrieb relishes it. “I like it because it puts a target on your back.” he confirmed. “I like this feeling because that’s normally when you can play for something and when you can defend something. It puts more pressure on the boys.

“This was by far the best game of the season just because this is what happens when teams come here. They want to hurt you. They want to damage you. They want to take something away from you. I really like this because you just need to turn up and make sure you do the right things and then you can do it again and again.”

Picture supplied by Dave Budden.