Maidstone are still to decide whether they have met their successor to Jay Saunders.

The Stones are set to hold further talks with the final four candidates next week, having completed initial manager interviews.

It’s a tricky decision for the directors who have seen United slip into the National League relegation zone after five straight defeats.

It won’t be Sol Campbell or Joe Kinnear, neither of whom have applied.

As for the genuine contenders, Maidstone have some serious thinking to do.

Chief executive Bill Williams said: “It’s a difficult process because we have to get it right.

“We’ll wait until Monday and have another chat and see where we are.

“We’re not 100% sure what we’re going to do yet if I’m being honest.

“We’ve got some good candidates in there but are they the best we can really get at the moment? That’s what we’ve got to decide.

“We haven’t made our minds up.

“There’s nothing been decided. It’s such a vital thing for us.

“We want to do it as quick as we can but we can’t make a mistake.

“We’ve got to get this right.

“We’ve had one manager for seven years, we haven’t had to face up to this before and we don’t want to get it wrong.”

The early-season signs suggest a relegation battle and the board need a manager to lead them away from trouble.

Williams said: “What we’ve got to get is the man we have the belief in, before he works for us, that he’s going to be able to turn the situation around.

“That’s the crux of it all. You have to have that belief when you’re employing a manager.

“It’s a huge job. There’s a tremendous amount of thought, training and hard graft to go into it.

"We’ve just got to get it right and we’re not there yet.”

Williams feels it’s clear the squad needs work.

He added: “Is the squad good enough? No.

“We’ll do the best we can to find money and we’ll have to do some juggling about but obviously this squad needs a bit of tweaking here and there. But that will be up to the new man to do.

“We’ve gone a long, long time now without the relief of having goalscorers on the pitch and we need that to come into the game somewhere or we need a spread of goals around this team.

“At the moment, take away Blair Turgott and where are the rest of us?

“We’re meant to be scoring goals. They need to step up to the plate.”