‘There are no excuses – we were awful’ – Gosport Borough boss Shaun Gale reacts to shock Southern League home loss to lowly Hartley Wintney

Boro never recovered after conceding in the first minute as lowly Hartley Wintney produced a shock 3-1 win at Privett Park.

Gosport’s consolation didn’t arrive until the 90th minute via sub Billy Busari and in truth the hosts failed to create many clear openings all afternoon.

‘It’s not good enough,’ Gale declared. ‘There are no excuses - we just didn’t do the basics well.

‘We have got to do better, that was miles away from what I want, and we’ve got to stop conceding soft goals.

‘We’ve stopped doing what we were good at earlier in the season, and that was making life difficult for teams.

‘There was no reaction (after falling behind early on). Some of the players looked as if they were hiding.

‘It was massively disappointing there was no reaction. We were awful.

‘When you’re not playing well, you’ve got to dig even deeper. We didn’t win nearly enough of our battles.

Gosport have now collected just one win in their last eight league games. Though they remain fifth, in the last play-off place, teams behind them have games in hand.

‘The confidence has been affected, of course it has.

‘We have some young players - Harry Kavanagh, Harvey Rew, Matt Casey, Bert White - who are not long out of kids’ football and we’re asking them to do a man’s job.

‘If we carry on like this we won’t be in the top five for much longer. We have got to do a lot better.’

Midfielder Mike Carter comes back into the reckoning for Saturday’s New Year’s Day league trip to Salisbury.

Striker Nick Dembele - who hasn’t played since mid-November - could also feature in the squad.

But defender Ryan Woodford, who missed the Hartley defeat, remains suspended for both Salisbury and the January 8 home game with Walton Casuals.

Striker Matt Paterson was named on the bench against Hartley but wasn’t fit to come on after suffering a hamstring injury in the pre-match warm-up.