Ebbsfleet are in their best league position of the season and boss Steve Brown hopes he will be shown patience in the hunt for promotion.

Victory at home to Farnborough on Saturday lifted the Fleet to second in Vanarama Conference South with almost half of the season gone. Title rivals Boreham Wood and Basingstoke both dropped points last weekend but Brown insists the current table counts for nothing.

He said: "It’s November. I don’t know a league that’s ever been won in November.

"Unless we’re sitting in the bottom half and performances are disastrous, people need to show a level of patience. Let’s see where we are in January, February and March. If we’re in a position where people think that’s not good enough, we’ll address it then.

"We’ve gone second in November but I’d like to be first at the end of April. That’s the goal."

Fleet had gone four games without a home win before Saturday, when Matty Godden’s second-half hat-trick went some way to lifting the pressure on Brown.

But he said: "I don’t get too down when it’s draw-loss-draw and I don’t get carried away when we win. You just work on the training field and try to win every game.

"History tells you you can’t win every game. Only one team that I know of, the exceptional Arsenal side (of 2003-04), didn’t lose a game during a season.

"The last month has shown me there needs to be a little bit of patience and realism.

"You are going to drop points. It’s how we bounce back and how the performances are. We need to keep the players’ mentality high and the morale high when we go draw-loss-draw. That’s my job."

Ebbsfleet are away to Eastbourne Borough on Saturday.

Read the full story in the Gravesend Messenger.