Jay Saunders has told Maidstone players to get their heads up and believe they will stay in the National League.

Stones missed the chance to climb out of the bottom four after losing to 2-0 to Aldershot on Saturday.

But they’re still only a point away from safety with 15 games to go, so there’s no need to panic.

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Boss Saunders said: “All we can do is keep going.

“I’ve just said to the lads in there, there’s no point getting our heads down and beating ourselves up.

“We’ve got to keep our spirits up. We’re making it harder and harder for ourselves but we’ve just got to keep going.

“I’ve still got belief. I’ve had belief all season. It’s just we have to change these key moments and sometimes you need a bit of luck and we don’t seem to be getting that at all.

“There’s just things not going our way but that happens when you’re down there.

“Last season we were up there and we were getting things going our way.

“So that’s the way it goes but we’ve still got belief and I just said to the lads, don’t stop believing. We just need to, whatever way it is and whatever method it is, we’ve got to get some back-to-back wins.”

Saunders felt there was little between his relegation battlers and an Aldershot side whose victory sent them sixth, just two points outside the play-offs.

They had the clearer chances, the best falling to Jamie Coyle at 1-0 down.

But they were punished for mistakes as the visitors scored with their only shots on target, a Kundai Benyu free-kick and a late second from Jake Gallagher.

Lee Worgan felt he should have saved Benyu’s strike while the second was too easy as United chased the game.

Saunders said: “Other than that, I don’t think there was masses between us.

“If you look at them, they’re a side chasing the play-offs and I thought we gave them a good game.

“First half, it was a bit of a nothingy game.

“Other than the free-kick, both teams huffed and puffed without any real quality, and then second half, I thought for a 15-20-minute spell we were really on top.

“Coyley’s had the pick of the bunch. He’s got to score. There’s no other way of looking at it. He has to score.

“He’s got a free header from three yards out and he heads it straight at the keeper, and then we’ve had a few other good chances.

“At that stage you need to take your chances and all of a sudden it becomes a different game but that’s our season.”

Read the match report from Maidstone's 2-0 defeat by Aldershot