Maidstone will appeal Elliott Romain’s red card in their 5-2 defeat at Havant.

The Stones were 1-0 down when Romain saw red following an incident in front of the home bench.

Video footage appears to clear the Stones forward of any wrongdoing, to the extent where it’s not obvious what he was sent off for.

Stones boss Harry Wheeler, speaking after the game, said: “It’s never been a yellow card let alone a red card. It’s something we’ll appeal.

“I hope they do the right thing and overturn it because Elliott’s a big player for us and we’ll put it in straight away in the morning.”

Wheeler felt the red card made a “big, big difference” to the game but Maidstone’s defending was the main issue.

They conceded some dreadful goals and are back in the National League bottom four.

Wheeler said: “It was personal battles. We didn’t win personal battles, they won more than we did.

“They won more first balls, more second balls, so it wasn’t a team thing or a coach thing, it was an individual thing of winning personal battles today.

“Personal battles are nothing to do with preparation.

“It’s the individual mentality of that player to go and win against the player he’s up against.

“We can’t work on making someone win against the player they’re going to play against Saturday.

“They’ve been fantastic at times and the recent run’s been really good.

“So they’ve got to look at the recent run, take something from that, take the loss on the chin - it happens - and react Tuesday (against Eastleigh) and give people something to be positive about.

“We’ll adapt to it, it’s happened. OK, 5-2, 3-2, you still lose, you still don’t get a point, it makes no difference.

“We’ve just got to go and be objective with it, think about the facts, what went wrong, work hard Monday and prepare properly for Tuesday and make sure we give a proper good performance.”

The Stones are 22nd, a point from safety, but Wheeler stressed the league table means nothing at this stage.

He said: “No one gets relegated or promoted in November. It’s totally irrelevant the league table, it’s absolutely irrelevant.

“Ask me in February and I might have a different answer for you, depending on where we are.

“You go game by game. We win the game on Tuesday, we could be 17th if all the results go your way.”

Read the match report from Maidstone's 5-2 defeat at Havant