Gills boss Steve Evans delivers an honest assessment following Saturday's defeat at home to Burton.
Gillingham Manager Steve Evans admitted Burton Albion thoroughly deserved the three points on Saturday as Gills slipped to a 2-1 defeat in their first league outing at Priestfield of the season.
Ouss Cisse had put Gills ahead but two late first-half goals from Nathan Broadhead gave the visitors something to hold onto after the interval, and Albion defended well to retain their advantage.
Reflecting on the performance, Evans said: “The performance was poor from start to finish. We should equalise with the last kick, which would have been totally undeserving but we haven’t played with any cohesion, and we did nothing that we’ve worked on in pre-season. We will be back on the training ground tomorrow, and we will be ready for Tuesday.”
The Manager said he was disappointed with some of the effort put in and highlighted that everyone needs to pull in the same direction, if the team wants some success. He said: “First and foremost you need eleven people working hard and we had two or three who weren't. It’s not the start we wanted. We want to address the home form as quickly as we can, and performances like that aren’t going to do it.
“They (The players) know it wasn’t good enough. We had to make some substitutions at half-time because people weren’t working hard, and we should never be faced with that. You can’t lose two goals because people don’t do their jobs.”
Report | Gillingham 1-2 Burton Albion
Looking ahead to Tuesday night’s game against Newport County in the Carabao Cup, Evans confirmed that he will be looking for a response. “That eleven won’t start on Tuesday. There won't be wholesale changes because we haven’t got the squad; we’ve only got 17 or 18 first team players.
"We are still trying to get one or two in, but we aren't going to run out of the door and be dramatic and try and sign players that wouldn’t have been the right players to sign yesterday.”