After the disappointed defeat to Harrogate Town last Saturday and having no game this weekend, it’s been a week of reflection for Gillingham boss Mark Bonner. 

“You cannot walk off the pitch happy or pleased with the level of performance or the outcome of the game that we had control of and so I would definitely expect everyone to be angry and frustrated,” the Gills boss conceded when asked about the discontent that went round Priestfield on Saturday at the final whistle.  

“You definitely would expect everyone to be angry and frustrated, but I would also expect the players would be able to channel that as they are all old enough and wise enough to know that anyone can give you their opinion, but you cannot answer back – and that’s just the “law” of the game.”

“You just get your head down knowing that the only place to prove yourself is in your performances and results – that is how it works!” 

“I think everyone – players and supporters alike – were frustrated as we were!” 

“It was one of those weekends – and there will be more of them – where every game was 0-0 at half time in the division; lots of games were low scoring with some mad goals scored, on the day where it was probably the first game of the season for most where conditions were rotten and it does have an influence on the game!”

“It doesn’t mean that it can’t go your way, but to have put ourselves in a good position in the game is the biggest frustration – we have done that a couple of times already – and in the end we were not the forceful team when we went 1-0 up trying to get the next goal to put the game to bed.”

“We weren’t a fierce team that stopped them from creating against us and we finished the game looking defeated and deflated and out of ideas and energy and that is something you can never, ever accept as a player, as a coach, as a manager, as a supporter at all, so I have absolutely no qualm at all with people venting frustrations!”

“I also believe as a football fan myself, that you buy a ticket to go and watch the team and my psychology is that you are one hundred percent behind my team until the final whistle blows. And then at full time, you are not very happy with it, then I have every right to say it!” 

“If it’s ever unfair, I will always bite back a little bit – I always try to be completely honest with the feedback – and I often get credited for being honest until people don’t like the things that I say, but you can’t have it always!”

“Sometimes I will say things that people agree with or disagree with, do like, don’t like, but in the end none of the talking stuff really matters as we have to be better than that in larger parts of a game and the consistency we have to find as a team has got to improve as we have been up and down too much.”

“We almost turned a corner with a couple of good performances that have chipped away some League points; good Cup performances against Blackpool and Stevenage – a win against Port Vale and then you think we are turning the corner and now we have to stack some results together… we put ourselves in a position where we should have done and then we didn’t!” 

“And now it feels like all the talk isn’t about a few decent weeks where we started to turn the page a little bit, it’s just how long the run has gone on, how many defeats it is, how many wins in a certain amount of time!”

“You cannot change the narrative in that moment, you can only change it with what you do next. We have had some good meetings within the squad this week where there has been some real honesty from everybody and the boys have worked really hard and hopefully in the next few weeks, we will find a formula that gives us a real good run going into January!” 

“For some of the boys this week has been useful to get some work into their legs. Those who have missed large periods or are just coming back have had a good week.”

“But you can’t get away from the fact that it’s a long break between games and with the game moving to Wednesday it’s even wider.”

With the Bromley game being moved 24 hours it will mean that after eleven days off, Bonner’s side, after going to Hayes Lane, face seven games in 29 days!

“We will have now had two spells not playing right in the heart of the season which you normally had. I’m sure those sorts of breaks will be seen again when the real winter arrives so you just have to ride it out, but gives you the opportunity to train hard and work at the things that you need to, but you have to be careful that you don’t do too much as well.”

“With the Bromley game on Wednesday, and the turn around to Salford next weekend being so fast just means that we will be in a lot which is fine, but we have to make sure we do the right amount of work.”

“We have a couple more training days in the build up, which is good for us – it has been a good opportunity for us to really graft, to get the anger out of the system and to work on things that we have needed to.”