Jay Saunders said Maidstone deserved their injury-time winner against Chester.

Centre-half Alex Finney finished a corner in the 95th minute for the only goal of Saturday’s game at the Gallagher.

It sent United up to fifth place in the National League table - four points behind leaders Dover with a game in hand - with Chester dropping back into the relegation zone.

A big chunk of seven added minutes came from Blues keeper Alex Lynch - first to change his boots and then treatment for an injury.

And while the visitors were shattered after a big defensive effort, United got their rewards.

Boss Saunders said: “I didn’t think the breakthrough was going to come to be honest.

“Over the game I thought we were the better side and deserved the win but first half when the ball hits the post and then the keeper’s laying on the floor and it drops straight into his hands you think ‘oh, it’s going to be another day.’

“But we kept going and we’ve gone for it in the end, ended up with four forwards on the pitch and thankfully got the break and, funnily enough, it was a centre-half that got the goal but I thought we deserved that.

“Chester came here and you could see they worked ever so hard, they set their stall out, always looked dangerous on the break from set-pieces, but I think we’ve had the majority of possession and deserved to win the game.”

Finney’s goal triggered huge celebrations as United won a home game for the first time since beating Woking in early September.

Saunders said: “It’s a difficult one, he had quite a lot of time, so when it’s dropped to him I thought he was going to go back across goal but he’s made the right decision and gone with power.

“We had a lot of shots today that couldn’t make their way through crowds of people and that one thankfully made its way through into the back of the net.

“You could see the relief of all the players, the celebrations, I think they were delighted.

“There was a big celebration because it’s been frustrating at home lately.

“As I said to the boys, all the time we’re doing well in the league, teams are going to come here and set up and first and foremost be hard to beat.

“I thought first 20 minutes we started really well, we were asking a lot of questions and then I thought we started to panic.

“You could see the crowd got a little bit edgy and we started to stop doing what we were doing well and it allowed them back into the game.

“I said at half-time, ‘let’s not worry about what anyone’s saying in the crowd, it’s about us in here and keep trying to do the right things and if we do that, it’ll come in the end.’

“We kept probing and probing second half. We put a hell of a lot of balls into their box today that they defended well - some balls weren’t good enough - but thankfully we’ve had that bit of quality at the end.”

Read the match report from Maidstone's 1-0 win over Chester