Ebbsfleet manager Josh Wright has admitted the first 10 games of the season have gone even better than he expected.

The Fleet’s campaign only got under way at the start of September but they’ve nearly caught up with their rivals after a hectic run of matches.

A stoppage-time equaliser from Charlie Seaman rescued a point in a 2-2 draw at home to Horsham on Tuesday night.

While the performance may have dipped from recent games, Wright couldn’t help but be impressed by the character his squad are showing.

“If someone would have said to me, you’re 10 games in, second in the table, still got games in hand,” said Wright.

“Then the goals we’ve scored, and the goals we’ve not conceded... Has it gone better? Maybe. Am I happy? Absolutely, I am.

“We’re in a good place. We just need to keep digging deep over this next few weeks before we get to some form of a breather. We’ve got a few more games to go yet but we’ll take it one game at a time.”

With the Horsham game in mind, Wright added: “If I see a lack of effort, lack of trying or anything that I didn’t like, it’s different, but it’s none of that.

“We just looked a little bit like these games have got us a little bit.

“Bear in mind we hadn’t played for four or five weeks before this run of games, where everyone else had gone straight from a pre-season into them.

“We’ll have our moments. We’ve had it once or twice in the last three or four weeks as well where we’ve just looked a little bit tired and jaded.

“But the big thing if you can’t win is don’t lose. We’ve picked up what could be a valuable point and it keeps the tag on our back of an unbeaten run.”

After scoring 11 goals in their previous two home matches to thrash AFC Totton and Weston-super-Mare, the expectation might be for that to become the norm.

But Wright knows football never works that way.

“You know you’re never going to continue scoring that many goals, but what we’ve shown is we know what we can do,” stated the Fleet boss.

“We know we can do that to teams and teams will know that. So, teams will do something and change something to try and nullify us.

“We’re a team or one of the teams that people will want to beat, they’ll want to knock us off our perch, because it’s a long unbeaten run.

“So, we’ll have to raise our game as teams will raise their games against us, but we’ve earned that as a group this season.

“To be where we are at this stage of the season, with a larger points tally in terms of being nine points ahead of last season, is really pleasing and it gives us a fantastic platform to build on.”

While still behind on their games, only two teams have scored more league goals than the Fleet.

Their lack of a clinical edge was one criticism aimed at Wright’s men last season, but that’s not the case so far.

“We look like scoring goals as well,” added Wright.

“Even on Tuesday when we weren’t at our best, we looked like there were still moments where balls could have gone for us.

“We looked a little bit disjointed at times with substitutions and changes, and we had to go for it, but the subs have had a big impact for me again and it’s shown the depth of the squad.

“There were a lot of pleasing things. You can’t be too downbeat over a point. Yes, we want to win and that frustrates me, but you can’t be too down.”

Ebbsfleet’s busy schedule continues when they host Maidenhead in National League South this Saturday before travelling to Maidstone on Tuesday night.