George Elokobi believes a combination of factors will attract the players he wants to Maidstone United.

Boss Elokobi is working hard behind the scenes on transfer targets as he rebuilds his Stones squad for National South football.

The chance to play for not one but two ex-Premier League players helps, with Elokobi a cult hero at Wolves, while assistant manager Craig Fagan turned out for Birmingham, Hull and Derby in the top flight.

Maidstone also have a lot going for them as a club, not least a big fanbase, to entice targets.

Asked if his name helped, Elokobi said: “To be honest, the answer is yes, to an extent it does help, because of the experience I’ve got, having played at every level in this country.

“But it’s not just myself. I’ve got Craig Fagan as my assistant manager and also it’s the football club as a whole.

“From some of the targets we’ve spoken to, they’ve played against us, they know about Maidstone, and our great fanbase, and they do their research.

“They know it’s a fantastic environment to come in and be a part of. It’s quite a stable club in my opinion that’s fit for players to come in and develop, and that’s very much what we’re offering.

“The players we sign are going to complement each other - it’s going to be very dynamic next season.

“Hopefully we are able to persuade the players we want and they come to a decision where they know they have a chance to come in and develop.

“That’s important because, as much as we want to win games, we want to try and create an environment where we do develop these players at the same time as being successful on the pitch.

“You have to try and attract players to the club and ensure you sell your vision to these players.

“It’s about the structure that’s in place for these players to come in and bed in straight away in pre-season, along with the players we’ve retained, which I’m overly excited about.”

Maidstone signed midfielder Devonte Aransibia from Tonbridge soon after the season ended.

He was followed by Lewes winger Razzaq Coleman De-Graft and Lamar Reynolds, who arrived from Braintree.

Maidstone's summer recruitment continued with the signing of left-back Chi Ezennolim.

The 21-year-old spent the past two seasons with Welling in National League South, winning both players' player and supporters' player of the year at Park View Road in 2022/23.

Former Millwall youngster Ezennolim has decided against a move to the National League in order to join Maidstone.

Elokobi said: "With the likes of Sam Bone, Sam Corne and Reiss Greenidge, we’ve got National League-standard players and I now include Chi in that.

"I know he could have made the step up this summer but I am delighted that he has chosen Maidstone United and he is buzzing to be part of what we want to do next season.”

The squad are taking shape but Elokobi is playing his cards close to his chest.

“We have a number in mind for how many players we need but I can’t tell you that,” he said.

“We’ll keep going about our business professionally. Myself, the management team and the board of directors are working ever so hard to find these targets.

“We worked on that during the season, we’ve spoken with our targets and now is the time to see if we can persuade them with our offers.

“Let’s see if they’re tempted to come into our environment to flourish under myself and Craig Fagan and also to come into our fantastic football club.

“We are very much talking to as many of our targets as we can. We’ve got our main targets who we’ve spoken to but we have to be patient and we’ll see.”

“We’re going about it very professionally but we have to be patient.”