Crowd favourite Stuart Lewis wants to stay at Maidstone next season.

Midfielder Lewis has been a huge success since joining on loan from Ebbsfleet and is out of contract at Stonebridge Road in the summer.

He said: “I’d definitely like to stay here. My family come here, they love it, and I do as well.

“The fans singing my name shows what they think of me and hopefully I’ve repaid them with my performances.

“As long as I can do that for another seven games, to the end of the season, I’d love to stay.

“Hopefully we can get something sorted but first of all we want to stay up, get mathematically safe and then we can all plan for next year.

“I think there’s a real good group here and a spirit that you don’t get often in football.”

Lewis, 29, has played a key role in United’s eight-game unbeaten run, form that’s helped them move four points clear of the National League relegation zone in 18th place.

Their record will be tested over the next week with long trips to Gateshead on Saturday, Macclesfield on Tuesday and Wrexham on Good Friday.

Lewis, who made his name in the Football League with Gillingham and Wycombe, has called on United to be as professional as they can.

He said: “How you prepare for games is so important and I think the club are realising that with what they’re trying to do in going full-time next season.

“At this level there’s probably the top 12 to 14 who could be in League 2 and you’ve got to match their professionalism, you’ve got to match their training, you’ve got to match their work ethic.

“That’s all part of it, the travelling, eating well and preparing right.

“The gaffer won’t let us take the foot off the gas and we’ll be on it this week preparing properly for Gateshead.

“You’ve got to be professional now because there’s players playing at this level that are good players and are going to go on to have good league careers.

“If you want to be challenging or want to be a competitive side, you’ve got to do that side of it and the professionalism in the next two weeks is massive for our survival push.”