Manager George Elokobi cut a frustrated figure after Maidstone’s draw with Taunton on Bank Holiday Monday.

For the third match running, his side took the lead only to be held to a 1-1 draw.

All three equalisers - scored by Yeovil, Hemel and now Taunton - came from restarts.

“I’m frustrated,” said Stones boss Elokobi.

“There’s no middle ground with me as a manager.

“I’ll tell my group as it is, then it’s done and dusted and then we can help them.

“I’ve told them what I thought about our performance, especially in the second half, and it’s fair to say they have to take things on board and learn fast.”

The hosts led through Levi Amantchi’s first-half strike but when Razzaq Coleman De-Graft became the second Stones player to be red-carded in three days, Taunton equalised from the free-kick.

Elokobi knows Maidstone could easily have maximum points from the last three games had they dealt with corners and free-kicks.

Report: Maidstone 1-1 Taunton

“It’s not good enough from us,” said Elokobi, with United 12th in National League South after six games.

“Week in, week out, we keep getting punished on restarts.

“That’s the only way teams are going to score against us and it’s our job to sort it out and we will sort it out.

“Our players, we need to take charge from restarts.

“Free-kicks, corner-kicks, throw-ins, long throw-ins, whatever it is, we’ve got to win the first phases and be alive for the second phases, and we weren’t.

“Taunton were on the front foot and they got a goal off it.

“It’s frustrating when we go through all the details and we watch their strengths and weaknesses and this is one of their strengths in terms of restarts because they overload the back post.”

Maidstone controlled the first half but failed to build on their superiority.

They lost key midfielder Sam Corne and skipper Gavin Hoyte to injury before Coleman De-Graft’s red card, and Taunton took their chance to leave with a point.

Elokobi said: “Sometimes we look at the first half and how well we’ve been playing and it’s about making sure we step up, we increase our intensity, we increase our levels to make sure we get those chances and try to take them against good opposition.

“They are where they are (sixth place) because they’re good at what they do but we didn’t capitalise, it took us time to get going and then again there’s another point of discipline (with the red card).

“If it’s a deserved red card, I’ll hold my hands up, like the one on Saturday (for Bivesh Gurung).

“I have to make sure we get our players right on the discipline side of it because we don’t want to be finishing games with 10 men.”