Gillingham manager Andy Hessenthaler wants his side to find some consistency after Saturday afternoon’s 2-1 defeat at Morecambe.

The Kent outfit now sit 10th in npower League Two after the loss at the Globe Arena and Hessenthaler was disappointed his players weren’t able to follow up their positive performance in the 2-0 reverse at Swindon in midweek.

He feels his men are turning their form “on and off like a tap at the moment” with two wins, two defeats and a draw from their last five games and the bad performance by the seaside in Lancashire made it a “disappointing day” for the former Dover chief.

“We huffed and puffed and made two poor decisions for their goals and got punished for it,” he told Sky Sports.

“We had a lot of the ball ourselves but didn’t do enough with it near their box so it is a disappointing day.

“We were very good on Tuesday (against Swindon) without getting what we deserved and you put pressure on yourself going into each game if you’re not getting what you deserve.

“Every team loses games but it’s the good teams who get through the tricky spells.

“We’re turning it on and off like a tap at the moment.

“We’ve got to find that real consistency and if we can do that we’ll be OK.”

Hessenthaler is still certain Gillingham can climb the standings and he isn’t allowing too much doom and gloom with only a third of the season gone.

“There is all to play for with 16 games gone,” he added.

“If we were 10th at the moment with only 16 games to go then we’d be disappointed and slightly concerned but it’s only 16 games into the season.

“There’s a good spirit within the team. We showed that last week (in the 1-0 win over Oxford) but we’ve had two games this week with a very thin line between winning games and losing.

“Unfortunately we didn’t get the result here and it was an average performance.

“We can’t do that. We’ve got to come here and be harder to play against, stop making individual errors and do a lot better in their box as well.”

Hessenthaler’s side next face the challenge of Northampton Town coming to Priestfield on Saturday with former Gills striker Adebayo Akinfenwa back with the Cobblers.

Picture supplied by Jack Gracie