George Elokobi wondered what might have been this season after Maidstone’s Easter Monday clash with Barnet.

Effective and efficient were the words of the day for the Stones boss following his relegated side’s goalless draw against the high-flying Bees at the Gallagher Stadium.

Those are qualities that get results at any level of football and Maidstone showed enough against the fifth-placed visitors to suggest they should have more than five wins on the board in what’s been a season to forget.

“It was a very positive performance from our players,” said Elokobi after Maidstone ended a run of seven successive National League defeats.

“The players were very effective and efficient in terms of their performances, so it was encouraging to see and the most important thing was the clean sheet, so it was good for us to take a point against a very good Barnet side.

“We know we’ve been relegated but again our players are ever so disappointed because when they put in an effective and efficient performance like we did today then we look at our league position and we have to be frustrated that we’ve not managed to do more as a group.

"However, we’ve got to look at all the positives, like the Southend game (2-0 defeat on Good Friday).

“We went there and created the best chances in that game but again we come off with defeat, so I had to pick them up again because they hold high standards.

“It’s all about keeping high standards at this football club now going forward and our players are performing.

“They want to come out here and put in a performance that’s efficient, that’s effective, for the group, not for themselves, for the group, for the football club, and it’s important they’re understanding that and what it takes.

“If we don’t score then we need to try and ensure we show a lot of resilience in terms of being out of possession.

• Report: Maidstone 0-0 Barnet

“If the other team is putting us under pressure we need to stay strong, we need to show character, we need to be hard to beat.

“We need to be compact out of possession but not just that, we need to learn how to win the first phases but also win the second phases and if the third phases come then we need make sure we win those as well and we saw a lot of that today from our players.”

Maidstone haven’t won a league game since beating Maidenhead 3-2 on November 26 - a run of 22 matches.

They were relegated with five games to go and need to win their remaining three matches to equal the total of 34 points they went down with in 2018/19.

For all the positives, Elokobi has made no secret of the rebuilding job on his hands at the Gallagher since landing the manager’s job.

He said: “The table doesn’t lie. We don’t lie as a group, as a club.

"We’ve not managed to get over the line in terms of our approaches in games.

"We know where we’ve been lacking in terms of how we’ve conceded goals and it’s important going forward we try to stay in games, like today, and impose ourselves even more in the second half of games.

"Everyone is doing a job for their team-mates, not just themselves, and it’s important we understand this as a group."