George Elokobi saw a Maidstone team who fought to the end in their defeat at Solihull Moors.

The Stones, trailing 2-0, hadn’t created a genuine chance all game on a difficult afternoon in the West Midlands.

They kept going, however, with Roarie Deacon having a late goal ruled out for offside, and caretaker boss Elokobi continued to encourage his side deep into added time.

“In football, you can never say never,” said Elokobi.

“The one thing we can never do is let our guard down and give up. We have to keep going. We have to be positive.

“That’s my job as the manager to make sure I keep encouraging my players and keep driving them forward to try and create those moments.

“Even if it’s just one more chance, you never know, to give our fans, who again came out in their numbers, something to cheer.”

Maidstone remain nine points from safety at the foot of the National League after a 15th game without a win.

Facing a Moors side who had fallen out of play-off contention in recent weeks, a free-kick led to Jamey Osborne’s opener three minutes before half-time and Joe Sbarra added number two.

“Today was a difficult one for us,” said Elokobi, who replaced debutant left-back Kevin Berkoe with TT Walters at half-time.

“We’ve come with a game plan and we were in the game. There was nothing in the game but just before the break we conceded from a restart and sometimes goals lift teams.

“We said to the players at half-time, stay in the game and keep playing the way we’re playing.

• Report: Solihull 2-0 Maidstone

“We had to make a tactical change and brought on TT so he could give us a little bit more attacking threat going forward, and he did that.

"But it wasn’t to be and we conceded the second goal.”

To concede so close to half-time was a blow and Maidstone, whose last league win came against Maidenhead on November 26, couldn’t find a response.

The opener came from a wide free-kick, conceded by Sam Bone, which hit a Moors player and fell to Osborne, who thumped home from the edge of the box.

“I haven’t got any issues with our players giving away free-kicks, it’s how we defend them,” said Elokobi.

“I’m not going to tell my players not to challenge. They have to. That’s their job.

"Out of possession we have to try and defend and if we do give a free-kick away and it ends up in the back of our net then so be it, but you can't take that competitive edge away from our players.

"It was the wrong time to concede a goal but that never dampened the spirit of the players.

"We spoke to them at half-time, we changed our shape tactically, we went into plan B.

"I've said we’re never scared to go into plan B and once we did that I thought we were a little bit more effective in the game, but we were just missing that little bit of extra quality to finish off the attacks we created."

Maidstone, who have 10 games remaining, visit play-off outsiders Wealdstone on Tuesday night.