Boss Hakan Hayrettin may be left counting the bodies he has available for this weekend’s match against Chippenham - with illness sweeping through Maidstone’s squad.

Hayrettin says Stones were without 10 players in total for their goalless draw at Havant in National League South on Saturday while Spanish winger Joan Luque was also suffering with the viral bug but he started after he took medication to get through the match.

Ahead of their encounter against Chippenham at the Gallagher Stadium, another side just outside the play-off places, Hayrettin said: “They are all going to be tough (games) for us.

“We are just going to have to see what bodies we have got.

"I know for a fact that, after the game on Saturday, three or four more players had this bug. They are struggling a little bit.

“So we will have to see what we have got, clear the decks on Thursday (today) and have a look.”

With so many players missing, Hayrettin, whose team visit Kent rivals Ebbsfleet on Tuesday, was delighted to return from Havant with a point - although he felt his side could have snatched the win.

He admitted: “There’s illness and injury. We had three midfield players missing that would probably play, then we had George Elokobi out (hip flexor injury).

“We had George Fowler out, Joe Ellul (ankle ligaments) out, Taylor Curran out.

"Luque was dozed up to his eyeballs because he was ill as well. We got a team on the pitch and on the bench to do the right thing.

“But sometimes, it presents an opportunity for others to step up and have a go, and they certainly did that on the day. We came closest by hitting the post.

“In the last five or 10 minutes, they put us under pressure but we played on the counter, and got stronger and stronger and we could have nicked it.”

Hayrettin said he doesn't think the bug sweeping through his first-team is linked to Covid-19.

Both keepers were in good form at Havant as neither side could find a way through.

It was a second successive start for goalkeeper Ryan Sandford since he joined Maidstone - who played a behind-closed-doors friendly at Barnet on Tuesday - on an initial one-month loan from Millwall.

The Stones boss said: “With the greatest respect to Tom (Hadler) who has done ever so well, it was an area which I looked at. Everyone else is being put under pressure and I got the ‘okay’ from the club.

“Tom needs to be put under pressure, as well, and that’s what we did. Ryan has come in.

“I think he is a very, very good prospect and he did ever so well.

"No disrespect to Tom but, if everyone else can be put under pressure, why shouldn’t he be? I think it was the right decision at the right time.

“We were happy to do that piece of business with Millwall and grateful that they have loaned him to us.”

But Hayrettin now wants his side to be more clinical and more consistent.

He said: “I think there’s three points between us and third. There’s nothing in it.

“We have just got to tidy up. I can understand peoples’ frustrations because we haven’t won many games but, sometimes, that happens in football.

“When all is said and done, for us to get a point on Saturday, and where we could have won it at Havant, was really good.

“But I know, as a manager, that I need to make sure we show a little bit of consistency now.”

Maidstone have been drawn at home to struggling Billericay in the FA Trophy second round.

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