Worthing’s extraordinary opening-day win under their new manager was not quite how they scripted it.

But Chris Agutter believes the manner of a 4-3 success at Weston-Super-Mare can do wonders for the settling-in period after a summer of change.

Agutter has taken over from Adam Hinshelwood after an interim period in which Aarran Racine ably guided Rebels to the Vanarama National League south play-off final.

There have also been various changes to a squad which lost star men Ollie Pearce and Joe Felix to York City soon after the promotion near-miss.

Rebels were 3-0 down on the opening day but came back to grab the points through two goals apiece by Jack Spong and Danny Cashman.

Agutter said: “We are going to be in situations this season where we are going to have our backs against the wall.

“But I would be surprised if there was a more challenging one than that, to be honest.

“We are 3-0 down against a good side and we are very early in our journey together but we still managed to find a way to win.

“From my perspective and getting buy-in from players, about what will happen if they do this, this and this, it’s obviously a huge boost as well.”

Worthing felt the deficit did not reflect how the game was going.

Agutter said: “At half-time we were 3-0 down but we were the dominant team and creating more chances.

“We have had the data through and it shows that.

“It’s easy to say after you’ve won but at half-time it was a case of, ‘How can we win the game?’.

“We genuinely didn’t feel like the game had gone. We just had to do Plan A better but credit to the players.

“I’ve been in that position plenty of times before and you don’t necessarily come back to win the game.

“The players showed an unbelievable strength of character.”

Agutter was most recently in charge at Hastings but has also had academy coaching roles with Stevenage and Albion.

He shares many of the footballing ideas Hinshelwood put in place at Worthing before moving on last season.

That has made the change-over not too drastic.

Agutter said: “There have been more personnel changes over the summer than we probably would have liked.

“We knew Ollie and Joe were probably going to go but we would have liked to have kept hold of a couple more. People have their financial demands and we can only give people so much.

“It has just meant that we prioritised certain things.

“But a lot of the lads know me from when I was at Brighton or through someone else so I think there is a decent awareness about the type of football we will play, which is the reason these guys originally joined Worthing under Hinsh.

“In terms of changes, it is definitely more evolution rather than revolution.

“We will probably be a little more controlled than Worthing were under Hinsh.

“But 4-3 in the first game doesn’t exactly tell you that!”