Hakan Hayrettin will step up his search for new signings following Maidstone’s defeat by Braintree.

The manner of their 2-0 loss got to Stones boss Hayrettin, who said he would be in the market.

Jaydn Mundle-Smith arrived on loan from Fulham at the end of last week and there will be more signings if Hayrettin gets his way.

"Am I going to utilise the market? One hundred per cent,” he said.

“If I can go and sit with my owners and speak to them, if I can bring players in, I will, I’d love to do it. Now’s the time.

“Sometimes you’ve got to have belief and faith in your players, and you will, but if we want to be where we want to be, I think now’s the time to say maybe we need one or two.

“There’s great dialogue at this football club from the owners and the chef exec and if there’s anything we can identify that’s better than we’ve already got, we’ll try and do it.”

Maidstone are ninth in National South, four points off the play-offs, after losing to Braintree.

They face a big challenge tomorrow at third-placed St Albans, who have lost just once this season.

They’re 11 points better off than the Stones in third place, having played the same number of games.

Maidstone have been missing the injured Joe Ellul in central defence but Hayrettin expects better than he witnessed against Braintree, when they conceded from a free-kick and a long throw.

He said: “I’ve won the league above as a player and as a management team.

“If you concede form restarts you’re not going to win it. If you don’t, you’ll have a chance.

“We identified they had two long throws, we didn’t deal with it, set piece, we didn’t deal with it.

“That’s meant to be one of our strengths. We have to dust ourselves down and go again.

“We’re good enough, we know we’re good enough, but we can’t have too many of these performances because for 45 minutes we didn’t offer anything.”

• Click here for more Stones news

Read more: The latest sports news in Kent