Phil Parkinson was left to rue a ‘hideous’ early goal that sent Altrincham spinning towards their first National League defeat of the season at Maidenhead United on Tuesday night.

After forcing the pace in each of their opening two drawn games, against Maidstone United and Bromley, the Robins headed to York Road in confident mood.

But it began to go wrong after only 13 minutes when an ill-advised back pass put debutant keeper Dermot Mee under pressure and gave Adrian Clifton the chance to dispossess the on-loan Manchester United under-23s keeper and open the scoring.

Another defensive error late on enabled Maidenhead to wrap up a 2-0 win that left Alty boss Parkinson reflecting: “It’s really frustrating, because we started so well but then gave away a hideous goal.

“It was a poor back pass that put Dermot in such a difficult position. It was a really difficult one to contend with, and we should never have put him in that position.”

With Alty still awaiting international clearance over Ollie Byrne’s signing from Connah’s Quay last month and Matt Gould sidelined by a concussion injury, 19-year old Mee found himself pressed into action within hours of his loan move being ratified.

“Dermot hasn’t even had the chance to train with us, which isn’t ideal,” said Parkinson, whose side face Yeovil Town at home on Saturday. “But there’s no blame attached to him whatsoever for what happened at Maidenhead. The lad plays for Manchester United, and you don’t do that without having character. He is absolutely fine.

“When you have the amount of possession we had, it would normally lead to us taking something from the game. We do need to show more of a cutting edge up front, but when that is missing, you’ve got to make sure you don’t concede poor goals.

“I’m really disappointed we didn’t do that. We killed ourselves with two moments, and we’ve got to do better than that.”