Manager Dennis Kutrieb admitted Ebbsfleet had only themselves to blame for missed chances against Dartford.

The Fleet wasted a number of clear-cut openings in the second half at Princes Park and dropped to fifth in the table – 10 points behind leaders Dorking Wanderers.

Leading scorer Dominic Poleon came off the bench at half-time but missed a number of good chances, including a close-range header, while Lee Martin was also wasteful in front of goal.

“We need to be clinical there and make at least one of them - if not two or three,” admitted Kutrieb.

“It’s football and it’s not happening. We need to work hard and score our chances, and then we’ll get the points that we deserve.

“We need to recover and look forward, it’s not the end of the world. We have to take it, if you don’t take your chances and don’t score, you can’t win games.”

An injury to Joe Martin meant the Fleet finished the game with 10 men but Kutrieb felt his team could have still got something out of it.

But even a point would have been tough to take, given the chances the Fleet boss saw his team create.

“We need to win the game, easily,” he stated. “Even with 10 men in the last 15 minutes we dominated the opponent but you need to put the ball in the back of the net.

“We had at least five clear-cut chances where we need to score. Even if we’d drawn, I would have said I was not happy about it because we wanted to win the game.

“Congratulations to Dartford, they didn’t concede and were the deserved winner.

“If we didn’t have the chances it would be a concern but we had the chances so at the moment it’s no concern (that we’re not scoring).

“It’s not about one player or one chance, it’s about the performance and the performance was good.”

• Dartford 1 Ebbsfleet 0 match report

Ebbsfleet have lost five of their last six away games in National League South - all to teams pushing for promotion.

It’s a run of results that could yet define their season, but Kutrieb only wants to look at the next game against St Albans on Tuesday.

“I don’t need to think about it now, we just need to focus on getting our luck back and scoring our goals,” he stated.

“If we deserve to win, we have to win. We need to focus on St Albans now, it’s another team in and around us, maybe at home it’s a little bit easier but we will see.

“They’re a tough team, I think they will bring in some new players as well and I saw they signed one on Monday. We need to focus on us and see who is fit and available.”