Gills boss Andy Hessenthaler reckoned his side deserved more than a point after coming back from a goal down to draw with Port Vale.

Mickey Adams side took the lead in the first half through striker Marc Richards, but Gillingham earnt a point with Danny Kedwell tucking away his third penalty of the campaign.

It was the home side that had the better chances throughout the game and on another day and with their shooting boots on, The Gills could well have earnt more with Hessenthaler saying after the game how he would have felt hard done by had they not come away with at least a point.

“We definitely deserved more than a point. We’re a little bit disappointed, but I can probably sleep easy based on the performance,”

“On a different day, we probably would have won the game, but we didn’t. We were a little bit fortunate with the retaken penalty, but we’ve earned that bit of luck.

“We haven’t had that much luck over the last few games, especially in front of goal.

“Our problem at the moment is we are not putting teams to the sword. We’re giving silly goals away and we’ve done that in the past three games.”

“In the first 45 minutes we were terrific but went in 1-0 down. Sometimes you don’t get what you deserve. When we got into the final third that final touch needed to be better at times but that’s me nit picking.

“As a team we need to think about clean sheets, and we need to think about taking our opportunities. If we hadn’t got anything out of the game it would have been a travesty.”

Hessenthaler is right is his assessment that they need to kill teams off when they have them under pressure and is equally justified to criticise his defence that has shown in recent weeks that silly mistakes can be punished.

Meanwhile, Port Vale boss Mickey Adams believed a point was what his side had deserved: “It was a fair result. Neither side did enough to warrant three points. But, having said that, we’re disappointed because a disputed, twice-taken penalty has cost us three points,”

“The linesman said he was not on his line. However, I think if there is a penalty, the referee should ensure the goalkeeper is on his line and if he’s not, he should tell them. I’m disappointed with the decision.

“At the time of the penalty, we looked reasonably comfortable. There weren’t too many scares and we looked like we could hang on for three points.

“The formation they employed stifled us somewhat, so we changed ours to combat them. It was hard-earned point and we’ll look forward to our next game on Friday night.”

As for Gillingham, they head to Torquay United next weekend hoping to have some of their battle damaged stars back available for selection.

Danny Jackman, Andy Frampton and Jack Payne should all come back into contention having missed the Port Vale game.

Should Gillingham still consider themselves promotion contenders they are going to have to start winning at places like Torquay, or improve their home form.