“They came and did their job better than we did ours basically!” The frank admission from Gillingham boss Steve Lovell speaking after Saturday’s FA Cup with Hartlepool United at Priestfield.

“Very disappointed with not necessarily the way we played, as we had most of the possession, but just what we did with the ball when we had it.” said Lovell after Saturday’s game.

“They put everybody behind the ball in the first half and I said to the boys that we usually dictate to the other teams the way that we want to play games, but they today dictated to us the way that they wanted us to play and that was everyone behind the ball, letting us have the ball, but with nowhere to go!”

“They won that battle of wit if you like, about our players being allowed to do what we do normally – we turn them; we get the ball in behind them, but we didn’t. We showed better after half time and we were a lot better second half, but still a long way off what we have been doing,” the Gills boss shrugged and said, “look it finished 0-0 and we’re still in the hat! That’s a positive I can take, but now we’ve got to go up there and finish the job.”

“They’ve come down here to get a nil-nil and fair play they got a nil-nil. Sometimes it’s the most difficult job in football to break a side down who are that intent and have everyone behind the ball and don’t want to win the game – they didn’t want to win that game!”

“When we go up there, they’ll look to win the game, making it a more open game which we can then hopefully exploit. And that’s why the games that we’ve seen recently with Bradford and with Fleetwood are played – you’ve two teams who want to win the games – today was us wanting to win the game and them not wanting to lose it and it’s hard to break down as it showed on Saturday!”

“The FA Cup is a competition in what anything can and usually does happen – just look at the League clubs that went out this weekend, so saying that we’re guaranteed to beat teams out of the League means nothing at all. We’ll now focus on Oxford next Saturday after the Crawley game and go up there a week on Wednesday and hopefully finish the job!”