Neal Ardley admitted Woking weren’t good enough in his final match in charge, after the Cards crashed out of the FA Trophy with a 1-0 quarter-final defeat at National League North outfit Marine.

Ardley, who was sacked by the Cards just over 24 hours after the defeat, said: “It’s not just the disappointment of the defeat, it was the manner of it.

“My team talk was about when you’re playing these games these teams run harder than they’ve ever run before and compete more than they’ve ever competed before, and if you don’t match that intensity and win those battles then tactics go out the window because you’re already up against it.

“Unfortunately, that’s what we did – Marine beat us up. We didn’t hold the ball up at one end, the two centre-halves got run ragged at times by one centre-forward and in between that we didn’t win any second balls.

“From a manager’s point of view you can talk tactics all you want and team selections all you want but I prepped the boys for what was coming and got a performance that was the complete opposite, so I take full responsibility for that.

“It’s a group of players of mine, but I can’t win headers when they’re out there and I can’t win tackles when they’re out there. They’ve had a chance two games from Wembley, and sad as it seems the opposition looked like they wanted it more.

“The better team won on the day and sadly enough the better team did all the stuff that needed to be done better than us despite us prepping the team for that and warning them. From a manager’s point of view, that is not acceptable.

“We let the supporters down, it’s as simple as that. They can boo us at the end and they can be disappointed – I’ve got no qualms with any of that.

“They travelled and they got a performance from a team of theirs that doesn’t make them proud and doesn’t make me proud. They’re disappointed and I’m disappointed for them. It was not good enough.”