Ian Allinson says St Albans City need to be ‘more professional’ after letting a two-goal lead slip at home to Eastbourne Borough.
Saints scored twice just before the break through Tom Gardiner and Zane Banton and were good value for their advantage.
However, a penalty from Emmanuel Odubade halved the deficit before Sergio Torres salvaged a 2-2 draw in the first minute of stoppage time at the end of the game.
And while it brought a quick end to a two-game losing streak in Vanarama National League South, the City boss was unhappy with certain parts of the performance.
He said: “It’s a psychological blow but that’s up to me to remind the players about the positives in the performance.
“First half there was so much positivity. We moved the ball well, we looked sharp and we created chance after chance.
“Yes, they look dangerous on the counter-attack, but scoring two goals just before half-time was much better than we hoped for.
“But it was how we managed the second half that disappoints me.
“We spoke about managing the game at length during half-time and everything we talked about we didn’t do in the second half.
“If you look at the goals, we conceded we haven’t defended properly but my main concern is how we’ve given the ball away cheaply in good positions, in terms of us having the ball in good areas where we can keep the ball better.
“If we do that, we win the game 2-1 and that’s where we need to be a bit more professional.
“The players have got to learn quickly otherwise we’ll be on the end of that a few more times from this year.”
St Albans get an instant chance to remedy that result when they host Havant & Waterlooville at Clarence Park tomorrow (Tuesday).
And the Hawks have continued their fine form from last season, which saw promoted back into the league as Isthmian League Premier Division champions after a season out of the league.
And they now lie second in the table, four places above Saints.
Allinson said: “They’ve continued from where they did last year. They had a great year to win promotion and it’s going to be a tough game.
“It’s a tough league, an unforgiving league, and if you don’t do the correct things and if you don’t do things professionally, you’re going to get punished.
“Those are the things we have to go back and work on. The good thing against Eastbourne is we haven’t conceded from a set-piece, something we worked very hard on during the week.
“We’ve got a young side and we are going to make mistakes but hopefully we can learn from our mistakes and go again on Tuesday.”
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