Ebbsfleet United’s owners have given manager Steve Brown the cash he needs to build a
title-winning squad this summer and avoid a repeat of last weekend’s play-off heartbreak.

A year after they saved the club from financial ruin, KEH Sports want to take the Fleet into the Football League sooner rather than later.

Brown’s side lost 1-0 to Dover in the Skrill South play-off final on Saturday and he’s already set his sights on winning the championship outright in 2014/15.

He said: "I challenged the players after the game. The challenge is to go one better. Let’s do what (champions) Eastleigh have done. That’s the challenge that was set down on Saturday, to the players who remain here and the staff, to make sure that Ebbsfleet United are gunning at the top end of the table and not relying on the lottery of the play-offs."

Ebbsfleet vice-chairman Peter Varney said: "We’ve got to strengthen the squad, which Steve will start on straight away and we go again. Steve will get all the backing he needs during the summer to make it as strong as he can.”

Brown didn’t have a single player on his books when he succeeded Liam Daish at Stonebridge Road last June but it’s a different story now.

He said: "We’ve got four or five signed on for next season already. I’ll have to speak to the players who are out of contract and I’ll get to understand their thought processes and what they want to do.

"It works both ways. As much as I might want to keep a player, he might not want to stay. They might have been picked up by Conference Premier or League 2 sides. We’ll have to wait and see.

"We have (transfer) targets and they would have adjusted if we’d have gone up but some of those targets will come to us regardless.

"What we’ve done here, off the field, what we’ve created at Ebbsfleet, in terms of players phoning me and texting me, wanting to come here, it’s been a real positive. They understand what we’re trying to create."

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