George Elokobi says Levi Amantchi deserves any interest that comes his way but is confident the striker is happy at Maidstone.

Amantchi is enjoying the season of his life at the Gallagher Stadium, scoring 18 goals already.

He’s flourished under the management of Elokobi and Craig Fagan and his form will inevitably alert scouts looking for a non-league gem.

His tools go way beyond an eye for goal, with his size, pace, and power adding to the appeal - and he’s only 22.

Stones boss Elokobi wants to keep developing Amantchi, whose latest goal earned a 1-0 win at Chelmsford on Monday night.

“As far as I know, he’s happy here,” said Elokobi.

“He’s happy, we look after him, we keep developing him.

“If we’ve got interest externally, that’s fine - he deserves that.

“But we’ve got a plan for Levi Amantchi and he’s going to keep developing.

“As long as he’s enjoying his football with us and he’s enjoying improving as a young player, that’s all we care about at this moment in time.

“As a management team or a football club, we have never stood in anyone’s way if they want to leave but I don’t think that’s the case with Levi.

“He’s a humble young man, he knows the plan from when we spoke in the summer and showed an interest in him.

“It’s a long-term plan, a long-term project for him, so long may that continue but I can’t look too far ahead.”

Amantchi has had a knack of being in the right place at the right time in the box all season.

But his work outside the area is improving all the time and he’s so awkward to play against.

So, how would Elokobi have handled him in his playing days?

“I would get as many defenders close to me, get my midfielders to be there, and try to drop off a couple of yards to give myself a head start against someone that quick and dangerous,” said the Stones boss.

“Sometimes you’ve got to respect the fact you can’t win a foot race against him.

“I’m not telling teams how to defend against him - if they want to try that, that’s fine - but again you’ve just got to be on your guard against him.

“You’ve got to be really steady and ensure that you communicate with your fellow defenders to help you.”

Maidstone moved up to second place in National South after beating Chelmsford, dropping to third on goal difference on Tuesday night after Aveley drew at Tonbridge.

United visit St Albans on Saturday (3pm), followed by a rearranged home game against bottom side Havant on Tuesday (7.45pm).

Another area pleasing Elokobi is the versatility in his squad, highlighted by midfielder Bivesh Gurung’s impressive performances at centre-back in the past two games.

“Bivesh plays where we ask him to play, just like all the other players,” said Elokobi.

“We’ve got a lot of versatility in our football club and that’s how we planned it as a management team.

“When I was profiling players one of the things was, are they versatile?

“Can I get players who are versatile at this football club because we need that in terms of adversity, injuries but also tactics.

“I don’t want to be read by any opposition manager.

“We try and tweak it as much as we can and we try and keep it in-house in terms of the way we do things to ensure all the players are comfortable playing anywhere we ask them to play.

“That’s why we go to training, we look at different things, we ensure we are educating them the right way and it’s good for them to have more strings to their bow.”