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Maidstone United boss John Still ponders deals for best of the trialists

Maidstone boss John Still is considering deals for the players who have impressed him on trial.

Ryan Johnson, Sadu Khan and Matt McClure all started against Dagenham on Tuesday, while Simon Mensah and Marcel Barrington got a chance off the bench.

With just over a week to go until Stones kick-off their National League South season at home to Weymouth, it’s decision time for Still.

Maidstone boss John Still
Maidstone boss John Still

He said: “There’s one or two there that have done very well so they could be the ones.

“I’m not bashing doors down to do anything at the moment but between now and when we start, we’d like to think we’ll get the ones in place that we want.

“One or two really impressed us on Tuesday so we’ll talk about that on Thursday and Friday and see what we do.

“With the amount of players we wanted, it’s never easy. You try to identify the type, identify the person and then try to agree with the person.

“We were quite lucky early on but it’s been the last two or three that have proved a bit more difficult. We’re getting closer to that now.

“I don’t (just) want to take anybody, I’m going to try to take the right ones so we’ll hold on until we can perhaps find the right ones.

“I’ve been really impressed with a couple of boys that we’ve looked at and I just think it’s a matter of trying to be as selective as possible.”

Maidstone led for most of the game against Dagenham before the National League side salvaged a 1-1 draw.

Still said: “I was really pleased. We were a bit more cohesive.

“We had some good passages of play, I thought we defended very well and I only felt we slipped a touch when we made a few changes towards the end.

“We’ve made good progress in the games and considering the amount of players we’ve brought in and bedded in, I was really pleased.

“There’s a fair bit to be done in terms of the collective. We need to do some more teamwork and we’ve stepped that up in the last week from the hard graft more down now to tactical and technical.

“Although we have to keep ourselves working hard and sharp, we need to work a little bit on our teamwork.”

Maidstone’s final pre-season friendly is at home to Southend’s under-23s on Saturday (3pm).

Still said: “We tried to be strong on Tuesday night and we were excellent.

“Clubs like Dagenham, Dover and Bromley have really strengthened but the only time things really change on the pitch is their changes are probably a little bit stronger than ours. That’s only to be expected.”

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