Maidstone United manager George Elokobi sees standards slip in 2-1 derby defeat against Tonbridge Angels at the Gallagher Stadium

George Elokobi felt Maidstone let standards slip in their derby defeat by Tonbridge on Saturday.

The Stones took 13 points from five National League South games in October but started November with a 2-1 defeat.

They looked set to take a point at the Gallagher Stadium after substitute Hamzad Kargbo headed home his first Stones goal in the 90th minute.

But Tonbridge, who’d taken a second-half lead through Eddie Simon, grabbed the points when Sean Shields struck in the eighth minute of added time.

Defeat saw Maidstone drop from sixth to ninth, a point outside the play-off places, going into another Kent derby at Ebbsfleet on Tuesday night.

“We are Maidstone United Football Club and I thought we dropped our levels, especially in the first half, and we can’t do that,” said manager Elokobi.

“In football, good teams, which we’ve been in the last month, maintain the same standards, the same levels in terms of off the ball and on the ball.

“Tactically, we’ve worked on how to expose their weaknesses but for some reason our intensity was really low in the first half.

“There weren’t willing runners in the areas we wanted to run and we let the game go by, and you can’t waste 45 minutes in football.

“All of a sudden we’ve gone a goal down, it’s taken us to change things tactically and then we started passing with real meaning, with purpose, less touches on the ball, more runs in the right areas, and we got a deserved equaliser.

Report: Maidstone 1-2 Tonbridge

“But again it’s about game management, limited touches on the ball, and I think that’s cost us a point today.”

Player-of-the-month Antony Papadopoulos, having set up Kargbo’s equaliser, was caught in midfield in the build-up to Shields’ late winner.

There were suggestions of