Roarie Deacon is adamant Maidstone will stay up this season.

The Stones haven’t won a National League game since November and are 10 points from safety after losing 3-1 at home to Eastleigh on Tuesday night.

Winger Deacon knows they’ve been written off but he’s certain the division’s bottom side will stave off relegation under caretaker manager George Elokobi.

Next up are back-to-back home games against relegation rivals, with Gateshead on Saturday followed by a rearranged meeting with Scunthorpe on Tuesday (7.45pm).

“We’re playing a very good style of football now,” said Deacon.

“The boys are confident in the dressing room, the belief is there.

“It looks like we’re in a position where we can’t get out of it but in the dressing room we know we can get out of it.

“We’ve got the players in there and the quality in there to get out of it and every day we’re fighting in training and in the games and giving everything we can.

“George is a winner. You can see that from his background and what he’s done in his career and the games he helped us win last season before his injury.

“He’s giving us that positivity every day, making us play the best we can play.

“It’s going to change. The dressing room know it’s going to change. It’s just a matter of time.

“Obviously time is ticking but we’re going to get out of this position.

“We can go on a little run and win three, four, five games and if teams around us lose, you can be out of it that easily.

"It’s for us to stick together in the dressing room, stick together on the training pitch and stick together in games and get out of the position we’re in.

"People are going to think we’re already down.

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“We’re 10 points adrift, we know that, but we’re not the type of players to give up.

“We didn’t give up last year when people said we weren’t going to win the league and we ended up winning it comfortably. It’s the reverse now.

“We’re getting told that we’re going to go down, that we’re not good enough, but in that dressing room we're more than good enough to stay up.”

Deacon was part of the Stevenage side who were relegated from League 1 in 2014.

It’s an experience he doesn’t plan on repeating with the Stones.

“There’s a couple of players who've been relegated before and all we can do is bring our experience to the team,” said Deacon.

“We’ve got a lot of young boys in our team who are very good players.

“They’re hopefully going to go and have a very good career and I’ve said to them you don’t want a relegation on your CV.

“I said to them it hurts. Even when you’re off in the summer, no matter how much fun you’re having with your family, with your kids, you still feel the relegation.

“You go into pre-season and obviously it’s a fresh start but you’ve dropped down a league and you know you shouldn’t be in the league you’ve been relegated into.

“We don’t want to go back into National South because we’ve conquered that league and the players we’ve got are too good for that league to a certain extent.

“We know we can stay in this league and we’re going to do it.”