Welling United were unable to recover from a dreadful first half and slumped to defeat at Eastbourne Borough.

In the absence of manager Mark Goldberg, Hugo Langton took on the duties and was unhappy with his team’s defending. “First twenty minutes I felt fine inside.” he said. “I think we gifted them another two goals and you’ve an uphill battle from there.

“Things were said at half time. We changed the shape early in the second half. We had two big chances, we didn’t take them. You’ve got to take them. Moses (Emmanuel) nicked one at the end but the damage was done in the first half with two poor goals.”

He explained why he was so disappointed with the goals conceded. “We work in training on our box from wide areas. Stay with your man. Don’t let him get across you. We do it a lot and that’s really annoying because two balls in the box today and two goals.

“You’ve got to have something in your belly saying ‘no-one’s going to get across me today. No-one’s going to score. We’ve said to them before the game (that) this is what (Nick) Wheeler does. He goes down there. He likes to chop back onto his right foot. It was all too easy for the ball to come in the box,”

Players had also been given instructions on how to play when in possession. Langton said “Eastbourne play such a high line- We’ve got so much pace up front. You’ve got Dipo (Akinyemi) trying to make runs down the side. Aaron’s (Cosgrave) trying to run in behind. As basic and maybe unsexy as it is, just put the ball in behind and you’ll get in but instead it was touch, touch, touch, touch, lost ball, lost possession.

“Your strikers are paid to score goals.” he continued. “Dipo’s had a great chance. Korrey’s (Henry) had a great chance. You’ve got to take them. Just relieve a bit of pressure. Give yourselves a bit of hope. Nick a goal at two-one with a long way to go, anything can happen.”

Those chances came after he changed the personnel and formation. “We had to do something because what was going on wasn’t working. I just felt that we needed two strikers through the middle and try and get Moses playing in one of his more favoured roles, playing as a ten.

“To be fair to Moses, he got on the ball and tried to make things happen. Moses had a positive influence when he came on but the disappointing thing is that we haven’t tested their keeper enough.

“I’m not going to fault the players effort, particularly in the second half. They’ve had a go. On another day, if we’ve scored one of our two brilliant chances, who knows?

Now, the management and team need to prepare themselves for the return game with Dartford. Langton said “We’ve got to find a way of picking ourselves up off the floor and go again and we will find a way. I’m not going to run away and I won’t let them do that either.”