MATT GRAY knows Sutton United are still a work in progress despite their impressive start to the National League campaign.

Sutton made it four wins in their opening five games of the season with a 2-1 victory at Yeovil on Tuesday, a run of form that has taken them to third in the table.

But boss Gray isn’t happy with everything he’s seeing from the sidelines - the main issue being his side’s weakness from set-pieces.

“To concede a free-kick... I feel like I’m repeating myself every game, don’t give silly fouls away, don’t let teams put the ball in our box, and we’ve conceded three goals in six games and two of those are set-pieces and I’m not happy about that at half-time,” said Gray of Joe Quigley’s leveller in the fourth minute of time added on in the first-half. “The goal certainly changed my half-time team talk, I’m not going to lie.”

Quigley’s goal undid an otherwise impressive first-half from Sutton, who were given a 10th minute lead by talisman Harry Beautyman after good work from striker Omar Bugiel, pictured right.

Gray was determined to see his team get off to a strong start at Huish Park.

He said: “I really concentrated on the start, because that is so important and we didn’t start well on Saturday and I thought the first-half on Saturday was our worst of the season.

“I didn’t want a repeat of that, I wanted us to be on the front-foot and aggressive in our pressing, our shutting down and our tempo and that was certainly all there.”

Beautyman scored from the spot after Isaac Olaofe was fouled four minutes into the second period before Sutton weathered the Yeovil storm in an entertaining encounter that kicked off at 8.10pm due to floodlight failure.

“It feels like I’ve played,” said Gray at full-time. “It was an eventful evening with the floodlight failure just before we went out for the warm up, which was excellent as was the start to the game and I thought for 49 of the 50-minute first-half we were absolutely outstanding. Our shape, organisation, resilience were outstanding, but then with the ball we were excellent on the counter-attack, we passed it really well, had several chances and scored a great goal.”

The only disappointment for Gray and Sutton is that there were no fans present to watch the win.

Sutton chairman, Bruce Elliott, has recently labelled the Government’s policy around fan restrictions in stadiums inconsistent. A limited number of fans have been allowed to attend football in the seventh tier and below since August after the Government changed its guidance on recreational team sports.

However, the plan was abandoned for clubs in the top six tiers, labelled elite clubs, which includes side Sutton.

For Elliott, the problem lies not with the prevention of fans in grounds, but rather with the lack of consistency in the current measures.

He said: “Sutton Common Rovers, who ground share with us, are allowed spectators because they play at a lower level. And if you step back and look at it then that is complete nonsense. People are being encouraged to go to cinemas but they can’t go and watch a football match which is in the fresh air. There are so many anomalies at the moment and people are finding it very difficult to know how it all works.

“I think the biggest worry is that some of our supporters - and we work hard to build up our supporter base - will drift off and watch games at a lower level. I’m not saying that they won’t come back to us, hopefully, they will, but in the meantime, their money is lost to Sutton and other clubs in a similar position.”