George Elokobi took his medicine as Maidstone lost to Chippenham but will continue to speak up for the club.

Stones boss Elokobi watched from the stands while he served a one-match touchline ban for picking up three yellow cards.

They lost 1-0 in his absence from the dugout, with a drab National South game settled by Jake Evans’ first-half strike.

He’s looking forward to being back in the technical area at Tonbridge on Boxing Day and won’t shy away from making his point.

“I’m going to say this, if I’ve got something to say, it won’t stop me saying it,” said Elokobi.

“I’m an honest manager and if I see something I need to speak about on behalf of my football club and my team, I will say it.

“It’s how I see it and it’s how officials receive it.

“I’ve served the ban, which is good.

“It might not be the last time but it was important I respected the ban. I’ll be back - and I am back now.”

The touchline ban gave Elokobi a chance to watch from a different perspective while assistant manager Craig Fagan and head of recruitment Zach Foster-Crouch took charge from the touchline.

There were no issues on that front but Maidstone didn’t perform, suffering a second successive league defeat after last weekend’s 5-1 beating at Worthing.

“We knew I was going to be sitting in the directors’ area and it was important I trusted the players,” said Elokobi.

“I thought Craig and Zach got the message across to perfection in terms of how we wanted to do things.

“It was a chance for me to watch from a manager’s perspective without being too emotional and see the team dynamics.

“I keep going on about relationships and partnerships on the pitch because it’s important for us.

“There might be a few tweaks here and there and it’s important we try and get that right.

“We’ll keep analysing that and reviewing.”

Report: Maidstone 0-1 Chippenham

Elokobi was in no doubt where the game went wrong for Maidstone after Chippenham left with the points.

He said: “We didn’t do what we set out to do in terms of the speed of our play, the intensity.

“We were very reactive in our play. We reacted instead of being on the front foot.

“I thought we played really safe. We didn’t put their defensive line under pressure.

“There weren’t enough forward runs behind their defensive line to stretch them and then when we did get in the final third we didn’t have the quality that we normally have in terms of our end product.”

There was a debut in midfield for Jacob Berkeley-Agyepong.

The former Havant man went straight into their side after arriving at the Gallagher on Friday.

“I thought he had a good game. We saw glimpses of what he can do, said Elokobi.

“When a player comes in so close to a game, it’s difficult because it’s a new environment and we’ve got to find out what he’s about and he’s got to find out about our environment.

“We know he’s someone who can control the tempo of the midfield.

“However, he needs to get up to our speed and then we’ll see a bit more from him but I thought he had a good debut and he’s a fantastic addition to our squad.”