Ryan Jackson has been talking this week about the growing frustration within the Gillingham squad that they’re experiencing with such an inconsistent campaign leading to manager Steve Evans conceding this week that perhaps the Play Offs are already out of reach.

“It is frustrating as we know what we’re capable of having seen our results against the big teams,” the Gills full back admitted.

“It is frustrating but it’s something that we can’t dwell on – we just have to try and identify the problems and just try to do the best that we can the following game.”

“It’s been the strangest season that anyone has ever known – no-one could have expected that this was how it was going to be! From my experience from being at Gillingham, we rely heavily on the fans getting behind us so that’s made it into a strange season, but we’re just trying to deal with as best as we can just like everyone else.”

“It’s without doubt the toughest season that I’ve known as it’s something that we’ve never had to deal with – there are so many games piled in together with no atmosphere in games, but we’re all adults and need to deal with it the best way that we can.”

Tuesday’s defeat at the hands of AFC Wimbledon was a real hammer blow to the side’s recent seeming upturn in fortunes and was just another indication of how inconsistent the results have been in this strangest of seasons. “We had a team meeting on Wednesday morning,” Jackson told us, “and there was a real sense of disappointment in the room – there were some home truths and a bit of honesty from the boys which hopefully let it all out and hopefully Tuesday won’t happen again.”

“We always put pressure on ourselves as players to perform to the best that we can and get as many three points as possible and that’s what we’re going to strive for every game that we play. It will be a hell of run if we can still make the Play Offs, so we’ll see…”

“It was tough to take Tuesday night especially as how the game went as I really couldn’t see them scoring and so late on as well.”

“It was a shock and I think that it was more disappointing the day after, but we can’t let the lows get you down too much, you just have to try and bounce back really!”

“It can knock you, but as a professional we all want to do well – on a personal note, I want to perform to the best of my ability every game and if everyone does that as a team then that should hopefully lead to good performances and hopefully three points.”

“So, it can’t knock us for motivation because we still want to perform as professionals.”

Picture supplied by Gillingham Football Club.