Maidstone United manager George Elokobi on the ingredients needed to win promotion from National League South

Character will be crucial for Maidstone during the final 10 games of the National League South season.

Stones boss George Elokobi and his staff work hard on tactics but there’s another side to football.

“It’s about that will-to-win, the desire, you have to be resilient to win a football match at this stage of the season, when everyone is fighting for something,” said Elokobi.

Maidstone, who visit Hornchurch today, sit in the final play-off place after their 3-2 comeback win over Salisbury last weekend.

They led through George Fowler but trailed 2-1 before Ben Brookes’ penalty and a late Sol Wanjau-Smith strike turned the game the hosts’ way.

“We know what our objective is and we know where we want to be,” said Elokobi, after his side bounced back from their 1-0 midweek defeat at promotion rivals Eastbourne.

“With 10 league games left, we want to be in that pack, we want to make sure we’re there and we can’t shy away from that.

“We were looking for a reaction from Tuesday night’s defeat and we spoke about character, desire, determination, and to do it as a team.

“Sometimes you’re going to concede and it’s about body language as well, making sure we help each other out with the right body language, the right communication, the right encouragement, on the pitch but also in the dugout.”

Elokobi had to think on his feet as Maidstone fought back to beat Salisbury and he’ll need his wits about him for the run-in.

“It’s not just myself, there’s constant communication between myself and Craig Fagan (assistant manager),” said Elokobi.

“We see different things, we have different roles that we play.

“Yes, I know I’m standing in front of the dugout but we bounce ideas off each other of what we’ve seen on the pitch and what we might