Mark Hughes spoke to CUTV after United’s 3-3 draw with Boreham Wood at Brunton Park.
On the high-scoring draw against the Wood, he said: “It's disappointing because we let a winning position slip, which could have been avoided.
“We just needed to do the basics right in the last 10-15 minutes or so. We're in a good position, and at that point in the game, you expect us to see the game out comfortably.
“You just do the right things at the right time, and we just made a few poor decisions, didn't get up to the ball to stop balls initially coming in, and sometimes you'll pay the cost, and unfortunately, that's what happened today.
“First half, I wasn't particularly enamoured by the way we played, I have to say, but we changed shape, got Georgie (Kelly) on, gave us more of a presence up top and got the benefit of that, and deservedly we were in the lead at that point.
“But I don't know, there was a little bit of nervousness trying to protect what we had, if that's the case we didn't do a particularly good job in terms of protecting the lead because we were poor in that regard but listen, it's the first home game, a number of them hadn’t played on the pitch before.
“I'm certain we'll be better on Tuesday so we'll draw a line under it, credit to them, they had a go and got back in and we didn't defend particularly well and they benefited from that but it's a result we should have had maximum points in but we'll take the point and move on.”
The Blues boss rolled the dice at half-time with Kelly replacing Georgie Kelly, and the Irish striker made an instant impact after coming off the bench to score the equaliser in the 49th minute.
On the changes made at half time, he said: “Well that's between me and the lads really but we just needed to do more of the fundamentals, we needed to get closer to people and affect them with a quality of our football, we hadn't got on the ball enough, we’re a footballing team, we needed to get our passing going.
“It was a little bit like a hot potato for long periods on that first half so we needed somebody with a calm head just to give us a little bit of guile and give us a platform in which to build on and I think Georgie (Kelly) did that when he came on.
“He (Kelly) was able to retain the ball higher up the pitch, as a consequence back four got up higher and the midfield were able to get closer to people.”
On a first goal of the season for Kelly, he said: “Well, Georgie’s not lacking confidence, if you factor in how well he finished last season, and he started once again really well, he hasn't started games yet, but he's come on and had an impact every time he's been introduced.
“He's very much in my thoughts for the games that are coming up.”
Regan Linney has shown his prowess cutting in from the left to great effect through pre-season and the beginning of the campaign, scoring twice during the afternoon from that side.
On Linney, he said: “Yeah, he's very good at that, that's his party piece really and pleased for him, home debut it couldn't have gone any better for him, so apart from obviously being on the winning side, he's made an impression.
“I think everybody enjoys watching him play, he's got a little bit of something that gives him a little bit of difference in comparison to other players, we see him in training time and time again where he's able just to create a little bit of space to enable him to get shots off and that's a skill in itself.”
On the visitors' equaliser, he said: “It was a soft free kick, I didn't think it was a particularly merited foul, but the referee gave it at that point, then you've got to switch on and make sure you do your jobs, you've just got to attach to people.
“Ideally, you see the ball fly over your head, your man doesn't score, and it just runs out of play for a goal kick; that's what happens when you defend correctly. Unfortunately, we didn't.”
Over 8000 Blues fans were in the ground to witness the draw, which Mark praised, he said: “Fantastic support once again, we become a little bit excited when we've got on the lead, and then we disappoint them.
But we've learned a lot today, I certainly have in terms of which way we're going and elements of our play that need to be a lot better just to enable us just to retain that control I'm always looking for, and then we won't get in a situation that we found ourselves towards the end.”
On an early learning curve as the Blues get to grips with the Enterprise National League, he said: “I think it's good to understand that early on, it's not going to be plain sailing, there's going to be ups and downs.
“Today was a down in as much as that, we allowed a winning position to pass the spike, but we didn't get beat, we came back from a losing position and got into a winning position that we weren't able to
“There are things clearly we need to work on, and we'll talk about leading into the game on Tuesday.
And on the game against Solihull Moors at home on Tuesday night, he said: “Well we'll put this one to bed, we need to look at how we approach this and what manner we're able to affect the opposition today, clearly there's elements of our play we need to improve on so we'll talk about them leading into the Solihull game.
