Adrian Pennock believes Gillingham need to keep working hard to get their first points of the season.

On Saturday he watched on as his Gills side lost 1-0 in League One at Milton Keynes Dons, going down to an early second half goal, whilst both sides wasted penalties late on.

Without a point to their name, or even a goal this season for that matter, Pennock believes his side didn’t deserve to come away with nothing:

“I thought we played well, knocked the ball around well but didn’t put the ball in the back of the net and conceded a poor goal from a cross.”

“We had chances, it’s the same old stuff at the moment. We had chances and we should score, people have got to break their necks to get on the end of the second ball or even the first chance but we’re bitterly disappointed and we should never have lost that game, that’s for sure.”

Referee Trevor Kettle was at the centre of the game’s talking points and Pennock didn’t believe the experienced official got the decisions right about the awarding of penalties:

“No. No, he didn’t. And again, it’s a tough role to play being the referee but their penalty you could see Tom got a hand to it and pushed it out of the way. For our penalty I thought it was very tough for them but then he should have got Max Ehmer’s one at the end.”

“I didn’t understand it at all. Again they are decisions he thought were right, and they weren’t.”

“It was more of a penalty than Nashey’s and he will be disappointed that we didn’t score it but he gave them a soft penalty so I thought he gave us a soft penalty. That’s what I thought but with Max Ehmer’s, he [opposing player] just took him out.”

Despite the disappointment of the loss, Pennock believes there were positives to take from the game:

“In the last half an hour we were on top but we’ll be okay. Wrighty’s very disappointed to have missed the penalty but he was brave enough to take it. He’ll be silly not to take it after last season, he will be the penalty taker. If not it would have been Tom Eaves.”

“Tom was a handful the whole game but you just need people running off him or being braver in the box or being ruthless. Nashey looked nice and bright when he came on, we are disappointed for the fans but we’ve got to move on and look forward to next week now.”

“We have been in every game, if we weren’t creating chances then I’d be worried. We’ll keep working hard in training and hopefully that will come next week.”

“The effort is there, the organisation is there, everything is there but it’s very important you put the ball in the back of the net and that’s not what we’re doing.”

“We’ve done a lot in the last week or two, like we always do with finishing and everything else in the final third but it’s just not happening at the moment but it will do.”

“It will do because the effort and everything else was top drawer, we didn’t give up and we shouldn’t have lost today.”

Gillingham now go into next Saturday’s home game against Southend United sitting just outside the bottom four with fans hoping a change of fortune and some goals come at Priestfield.