Worst he's seen - but Lewes boss predicts improvements

But he says the Rooks squad have shown since they are keen to sharpen up quickly by attending an optional extra training session.

Now he and the players are desperate to put on a much better show in their first home game, which comes against Cheshunt tomorrow.

Lewes had only Ollie Tanner’s strike to show in a 3-1 defeat at Russell and assistant Joe Vines’ old club Cray last Saturday.

Russell said: “It was the worst performance a team of mine has produced in ten years in management.

“Credit to Cray and I’m reluctant to put excuses out, but we had a couple of Covid cases and had to jig things around defensively and we couldn’t cope.

“The goals we conceded were one from a corner and two from straight long balls, and if you can’t defend against straight long balls in non-league you won’t win many games.”

Russell said he felt the 150 or so Rooks fans who made the trip had been let down and he and the players were ‘desperate’ to make up for it at The Dripping Pan tomorrow.

He has always felt it would take time to get the team looking and playing as he wants – and his aim is to get them in the top eight by Christmas then get them ‘going like a train’ after that.

He said he’d given players the option of an extra training session this week and every single one had attended. Meanwhile a couple of experienced defensive players could be added to the squad by Saturday.