Jay rules out quick return
Maidstone defender Kevin Lokko is out to silence Tranmere fans for the second year running.
Lokko was part of the Welling team who pulled off a shock 2-1 victory at Prenton Park last season.
Rovers are easily the biggest club in the National League and have won all four matches so far.
Lokko is well aware of the task in hand tomorrow (Saturday, 3pm) but expects United to thrive in front of thousands of home fans.
He said: “As soon as you walk in the stadium you can tell it’s a massive club – they were in the Championship not too long ago.
“The fans get behind their players, they’re good, experienced players who’ve played at a decent level. But the best feeling in Callum Driver is expected to be out for at least five weeks. The full-back suffered an ankle ligament injury in Maidstone’s defeat at Aldershot last week. Stones were hopeful he’d make a quick return but manager Jay Saunders said: “He still can’t put a lot of weight on it. “There’s still a lot of swelling and brusing and I’ve got a feeling he’s going to be a good five weeks, if not more.” Summer signing Jack Evans joined as a midfielder but has been deputising for Driver at right-back, a role he previously played at Gillingham. Stones have also signed former Norwich youngster Reece Hall-Johnson, who’d been training at Ebbsfleet, as cover. Saunders said: “Jack’s been outstanding. I knew he could do the job there and I’m more than happy with him. “Reece is a fit lad but he hasn’t had many match minutes, so he needs that, and hopefully he’ll be another asset to us. We’ve just signed him on non-contract to start with and we’ll see how he gets on.” football, especially in this league, is when you go to teams like that and turn them over – and we’re motivated to do that.
“You want to play in front of big crowds at big clubs and show what you’ve got.
“The crowd do anything they can to put you off but we’ve got to take that and use it as fuel to shut them up and perform in a way that will make them quiet.
“When they go quiet, you know you’re playing well, you know the team’s doing well.
“We all enjoy that hostility when we go away from home.
“We set the standard against Chester. We went there and completely played them off the pitch. We silenced their crowd, who were quite rowdy, we kept the ball and looked like the home team.”
Lokko expects Maidstone to be written off by Rovers as they make the 270-mile trip north.
But he said: “We can show everyone what we’re about.
“Tranmere’s run has got to come to an end at some point.
“We’ll go up there and they’ll expect an easy game because Maidstone have just come up from Conference South. They won’t know too much about us and they’ll expect to turn us over.
“They’ll be surprised what we bring to them and a lot of teams will be surprised what we give.
“We’re well equipped and ready for any sort of challenge and I wouldn’t bet against us finishing pretty high.
“I know the standard, I know what sort of players are in this league and their ability levels and I’ll tell you right now, at Maidstone, we are up there with some of the individual players we’ve got that can play a lot higher.”