After three consecutive home draws, Maidstone United were grateful to Frannie Collin’s 13th league goal to give them a much needed, confidence-boosting victory ahead of their biggest week of the season so far.

With visits to promotion rivals Dulwich Hamlet and Wealdstone in the next seven days, this was a game that Maidstone couldn’t afford to draw, let alone consider losing.

Collin’s 10th minute winner, a back-post tap-in, came during a period of the game when Maidstone were dominating play and possession, but the hosts were shaken by the loss of Zac Attwood and Steve Watt to injuries, which disrupted the flow of the game following their re-shuffle.

Only a truly world-class save from Lee Worgan denied Carshalton a point, but Maidstone will wonder how they didn’t make their task a lot easier as their intricate quick passing movement regularly carved the visitor’s defence open.

Maidstone’s manager, Jay Saunders expressed his disappointment with the performance by saying “we just wanted to get three points on the board. I don’t think we were there performance-wise, but it is a clean sheet thanks to a great save from Lee Worgan, so I’ll take that.”

“Watty and Jerrome Sobers were both struggling; Steve had a fitness test before the game and thought he was alright, but his calf has gone again which will probably put him out for a few weeks.”

“Then Zac has had a knock on the back of his head, I thought it was a late challenge, but his vision has gone so we had to take him off as well. It doesn’t help, when you’ve set up a certain way, that you’ve got to make changes to important players.”

“There were plenty of things I wasn’t happy with today, I don’t think we kept the ball enough. But I’ve got players in there who seem to take instructions too literally.”

“If I say keep it short, we don’t look to turn the opposition enough, but if I say turn the opposition, that’s all we seem to try to do.  That can happen with young lads in the squad, but as a team, we weren’t quite there.”

“We haven’t been on it at home recently, but at least our away form has been good; maybe it’s that teams have to come at us more away.”

“Hopefully we can get up to that standard. I don’t know what it is with the home form, but maybe some of the crowd comments are getting to some of the younger players. If we can match the away form here, we could be on for some season.”

Unlike a number of visitors to the Gallagher Stadium this season, Carshalton showed they were undaunted by their league position and were prepared to attack Maidstone.

Inside the first ten minutes, the impressive Tommy Bradford sliced his way into the home area, but his pullback was too hard for Brendan Murphy-McVey to control and Lee Worgan was quick off his line to deny Kingsley Aikhionbare a sight of goal.

With their first incisive attack, Maidstone took the lead through the prolific Frannie Collin.  Carshalton failed to clear Alex Flisher’s long throw, and when Richard Rose’s deflected cross dropped on the edge of the area, Steve Watt fed the ball in behind the fullback for Flisher to drive a low cross across the 6-yard box.

Zac Attwood, who had already suffered a blow to the head that would force him from the field, was unable to get a telling touch, but Collin had followed in to steer home.

Maidstone were struggling to cope with a variety of Lewis Taylor corners; Bradford stepping over to allow Niall McManus a shot that squeezed wide, then Charlie McCarthy’s unchallenged header skimmed over the bar.

But Fabio Saraiva showed that Maidstone carried their own threat from set pieces, heading Charley Robertson’s corner over, before Nathan Campbell almost capped an impressive debut, stretching every sinew to try to reach a pinpoint Saraiva free kick.

With the last chance of the half, Carshalton should have been level, but for an incredible reflex full-length save by Worgan, once again proving his worth to the side.

Matthew Males whipped a cross into the middle of the area, Aikhionbare and Graeme Andrews both missed the ball, but Bradford stole into the edge of the 6-yard box, and met the cross with a powerful header. Somehow Worgan managed to twist and dive to his right to parry the ball away for a corner.

The home side was struggling to adapt to the loss of Attwood, whose physical presence meant that the Carshalton centre-backs couldn’t relax in possession.

His replacement, debutant loanee Ashley Miller, offered a different kind of threat with an abundance of pace, running in behind the defence, which the Stones used effectively on the counter attack in the second half.

Collin had a wonderful chance to double the lead just before the hour, released by Robertson’s floated pass, but Carshalton keeper Ben Dudzinski stood up well as the Maidstone forward tried to dink the ball over him one-on-one.

Miller then showed his pace to run in behind Adriano Moraes to latch onto Campbell’s through ball, turned the defender, but could only stab his shot across the face of goal and wide.

Miller, Robertson and Flisher combined in the left hand corner to provide Flisher with a crossing opportunity that was too hard for Collin to direct on target.

Carshalton’s last half-chance came with fifteen minutes remaining, as Taylor attempted an overhead kick from McCarthy’s long throw, which Worgan was able to turn comfortably over the bar.

The visitors could have been made to pay for this miss, as Collin, Alex Brown and Miller all had chances to make the game safe, but none could find the target in the closing minutes.

MAIDSTONE UNITED: Lee Worgan, Richard Rose, Tom Mills, Steve Watt (Fabio Saraiva 28), Graeme Andrews, Nathan Campbell, Charley Robertson (Rory Hill 66), Alex Brown, Zac Attwood (Ashley Miller 21), Frannie Collin, Alex Flisher.

Subs not used: Jack Harris, Charlie Mitten.

Goal: Frannie Collin 10

CARSHALTON ATHLETIC: Ben Dudzinski, Matthew Males, Paris Hamilton-Downes (Sean O’Toole 70), Niall McManus, Charlie McCarthy, Adriano Moraes, Tommy Bradford, Harold Odametey, Kingsley Aikhionbare, Lewis Taylor (Andre Thompson 86), Brendan Murphy-McVey (Jordan Wilson 61).

Sub not used: Bobby Price.

Bookings: Adriano Moraes 45, Lewis Taylor 59.

Attendance: 1,559

Referee: Mr N West

Assistants: Mr A Bakalarz and Mr M Barnes