Maidstone United manager George Elokobi gives his verdict on Kent derby defeat at Ebbsfleet United

George Elokobi said Maidstone’s derby defeat at Ebbsfleet came down to fine margins.

The Stones lost 1-0 on Tuesday night with defender Ronny Nelson heading the winner from a second-half corner.

It was a second derby defeat in four days, following a 2-1 loss against Tonbridge at the weekend, and saw Elokobi’s side drop a place to 10th in National League South.

Elokobi was disappointed to concede from a restart - not for the first time this season - while his team lacked the creative spark to break down the hosts.

“It’s fine margins,” said the Stones boss.

“It’s about both boxes in terms of our intentions, how we wanted to nullify their strengths, and then restarts, we have to defend better, and the players know that.

“That’s football. We’ve got to get that right. In local derbies, we’ve got to try and keep a clean sheet, and we haven’t created enough to win the game.

“However, can we make sure we go home with a point? That’s not to be.

“We need to go back to basics, we need to make sure we start doing the right things in both boxes, making sure we’re psychologically ready in terms of our concentration levels and be on the front foot and win first contacts and second contacts.

“We have to make sure we look at the balance, the dynamics in terms of how we’re penetrating and how we’re trying to create chances to score goals.

“Are we making the right movements at times in terms of the crosses came in but we didn’t quite make the right runs, and these are the things we need to address.

“We were doing this three games ago but we’ve gone away from it and it we have to reinforce these principles back to the players.

“My job is to make sure I keep drumming into the players how we scored in the other games.

“We need to be