Saunders: We paid for taking our foot off gas
Jay Saunders said Maidstone players thought the job was done against Gateshead. Stones led 2- 0 against a Heed side who had Theo Vassell sent off after only 10 minutes. But they couldn’t see it through and it finished 2-2 as United’s winning run was halted. Boss Saunders praised Gateshead but Stones only had themselves to blame. He said: “The defending was a shambles and I thought we looked better against 11 men but full credit to Gateshead, they kept going and they worked their socks off. “We’ve given them two goals but I don’t want to take credit away from them because I thought they were excellent but our defending was a shambles for both goals. “You’re 2- 0 up against 10 men, you’ve got to manage it better and with the experience we’ve got, I’d expect us to but we panicked. “I thought we were excellent for the first 15-20 minutes and up until that point they had done everything we asked them to do. We looked sharp, we looked like we were causing problems. “I think it’s a mental thing. When they go to 10 men and you’re 1- 0 up, all of a sudden you think the job’s done and we just slowed the pace of the game down. “Once we did that, it played into their hands because, as a team, when you’re down to 10 men, you want to stay in the game as long as you can and hope you nick a set-piece or nick a goal. “We get a 2- 0 lead and I thought, ‘here we go, OK, we’ll hopefully see it out now, maybe score one or two more’ and then just two defensive errors have cost us.”