Maidstone United manager George Elokobi delivers ‘massive apology’ to supporters after 5-1 National League South home defeat by Chelmsford City

George Elokobi apologised and vowed to put things right after Maidstone were thrashed 5-1 at home by winless Chelmsford on Tuesday night.

The Stones sit just a point outside the National League South relegation zone after seven games of the season.

They led the Clarets inside a minute with Aaron Blair scoring his first goal for the club following a Ben Brookes long throw.

But the visitors were 2-1 up by half-time and clinched their first win of the campaign with three goals in the final seven minutes as Maidstone unravelled.

“Firstly, a massive, massive apology to our supporters,” boss Elokobi told the club’s media team.

“We’ve been well beaten. Is this the low of the low? I think so.

“However, we will regroup and we will go again because we have to.

“Confidence is low in there and it’s my job, and the management team’s job, to pick our players up and we go again.”

Maidstone are without a win since the opening day and Elokobi needs his players to stand up and be counted.

That means dealing with the pressure that comes with playing for a team who are expected to challenge for promotion.

“Playing for Maidstone is not easy,” said Elokobi.

“We said this to them when we were recruiting in the summer. It’s a pressured environment.

“Football, it doesn’t matter where you play, you’re always going to be under pressure.

“Can you handle the pressure when it matters?

“It’s all right when we’re winning, when the chips are down can we roll our sleeves up and dig a bit deeper? We didn’t see that today.

“That’s part of my job to make sure I get that in terms of the resilience, the characters, and we’ll find it.

“Where do we go from here?

“The only way is by coming in and making sure we train harder, making sure we look at what we didn’t get right.

“Our defending, we’ve gone from being really solid to making really basic mistakes.

“It’s important we look at it as a group and we carry on, we help our players with some visuals and then we make sure on the other side, how can we keep scoring goals and creating and finding the right balance within the team?

“As a management team, we will do that.”

Elokobi was measured in his comments in the dressing room after the game.

It’s easy to rant and rave but that would achieve little.

He said: “I can scream, shout, kick things, it’s not going to help anyone.

“We have to make sure we are positive with our messages, not to cuddle the players, but to be honest and be open about what we’ve all just witnessed.

“That starts with myself. I have to look at myself in the mirror, did I pick the right team, the right system and we go from there.

“It’s not because of a lack of effort from our group of players, it’s just a bad defeat.”