Maidstone United manager George Elokobi sees another late goal prove costly in 1-0 National League South defeat at Chippenham Town

George Elokobi believes Maidstone’s habit of conceding late goals this season is a psychological issue - after suffering again.

The Stones conceded in the sixth minute of added time to lose 1-0 at Chippenham on Saturday and slip to a third successive defeat.

They’ve dropped into the bottom half of National League South following the mini-slump, with the result leaving them 13th, eight points away from the play-offs.

Elokobi says United have lost 17 points in the last 25 minutes of games this season.

He addressed the issue again at training after late goals saw Maidstone beaten 3-1 at Eastbourne on Tuesday, but the curse struck again.

“You’ve got to look at statistics, you’ve got to respect data, and we spoke about it,” said the Stones boss, who takes his side to Chelmsford on Monday night.

“The players were quite shocked when they heard that because then we asked them the question, if you’d have converted those 14 points, now 17, into draws or wins, where would we be now?

“It falls down to a psychological aspect of the game.

“It’s not a fitness aspect, it’s a psychological aspect and as a group we’ve got to find it, and my job and the management team’s job is to ensure we keep motivating the players and let them see how good they’ve been.

“We’ve got to get back to that because, right now, we’ve gone back to September (when the Stones suffered four consecutive defeats in league and cup).

“We’ve had conversations, we worked on the structure, the defensive patterns, the attacking patterns and making sure principles are nailed down.

“The players went into the game full of confidence but now we’ve got to rise again.”

Maidstone’s work on the training ground paid off in terms of looking less vulnerable to counter-attacks.

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