Maidstone United manager George Elokobi pleased with summer recruitment as he confirms intention to work with smaller squad in National League South

Manager George Elokobi says Maidstone’s summer transfer business has been “relatively straightforward”.

United have brought in seven new recruits in pre-season so far, the latest of which are midfielder Conor Kelly and striker Ogo Obi.

They open their National League South campaign at home to Slough on Saturday (3pm kick-off) but perhaps with fewer recruits than many people expected.

Elokobi understands where fans are coming from, but has actively chosen to keep numbers tight.

“To be honest, the recruitment has been relatively straightforward because of how open we’ve gone about our business in terms of having conversations with players,” said Elokobi.

“Meeting players face to face, it makes it a little bit easier to sell your vision and the objectives for this football club.

“They get to feel it and, when it comes from the manager, they know you truly want to acquire their services. So, for me, it’s been straightforward and enjoyable.

“We’ve missed out on one or two but we’ve got 80-85% of our targets and there were a couple more who really wanted to come here but we just preferred other individuals.

“As a management team, as a board, we are quite happy with the business we’ve done. I do understand the little worries about a lack of numbers but it’s not a lack of numbers.

“I had to cut down the squad. We used, I believe, 37-38 players last season. That’s quite a lot. I made a decision on going with a smaller squad this season. That’s my decision and I put that forward to the board.

“The reason being I want all our players that are signed to this football club to be a part of it going forward.

“There might be one or two injuries - hopefully not as bad as last season - but I trust the work myself and the management team