Midfielder Jonny Williams admitted they were drawn into a kind of game they didn’t want to play on Saturday.
The Gills are looking to dominate the ball under head coach Stephen Clemence but were left scrapping it out with Bradford and ended up conceding a couple of avoidable goals.
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Bradford’s first came from a defensive mistake and the second came from a free-kick that was drilled under the Gillingham defensive wall.
Williams said: “We got caught up in a proper League 2 game and they were better than us in that kind of game of football they want, which is a bit more direct, it is frustrating.
“That was unlike how we have been recently, where we have shown we can be a very good team in this league on our day, the main thing is that our consistency hasn’t been there this season and had it been we would be further up the league for sure.
“We have struggled against teams lower than us this year, we need to correct that, get on top of that asap.
“We are very good when we score the first goal, but we need to work on getting better when we go 1-0 behind because we haven’t come back in many games and the boys are well aware of that.
“It was a tough game, they are a very direct but we gifted them two goals and you can’t afford to do that in this league.
“We definitely need to be better than that and I think what was most disappointing is that we didn’t show what kind of team we can be when we get the ball down and play and pass it around.”
The Gills went into the game off the back of successive wins, beating Wimbledon at Priestfield in the league and Charlton in the FA cup before their trip to Barrow last weekend was postponed.
“I felt annoyed that the Barrow game was off because we were full of momentum and it came at a bad time,” Williams said.
“There are no excuses, we had time to rest and work on the training ground and training has been brilliant all week, the boys had been at it, but that wasn’t like us.
“We have to correct that quickly. We just need to now put a run together and give the fans what they want to see.”