Jayden Clarke scored his first goals in the Football League on Saturday – the perfect response to some of the criticism that’s gone his way.
The Gillingham winger netted goals on 82 and 89 minutes to end any hopes of a fightback for opponents Tranmere, both of his efforts coming on the counter-attack.
More: Manager responds after another Gills red card
Clarke had been replaced in the starting line-up by Joe Gbode – who played a key role in Gills’ first goal – and Bonner spoke with the former Dulwich Hamlet forward in the week with some words of encouragement and advice.
Coming on as a substitute shortly after the Gills had a player sent off, at 1-0, Clarke made the kind of impact Bonner was hoping for.
“I’m really happy for Jayden,” said the Gills boss.
“He gets a lot of stick. He’s been brilliant. He’s working his socks off.
“He’s working brilliantly against the ball and like many of the players, they’ve just got to back themselves a little bit more with it because there’s more in us than we’ve got yet. But that’s what excites me. There’s a lot more to come from us.
“On one side of it, we’re putting pressure on them all the time to get better and be good but we’ve got to handle the weight of that and we’ve got to do what we’re good at.
“Everyone’s in the team for a certain reason. If you’ve got a real super strength and a quality, and in his case it’s face forward, run forward, go and create an attack on the opposition’s goal. He’s done it loads of times pre-season. He’s done it in moments in the games. He’s gone on and done it a dream.
“We’re going to keep encouraging him to try and do that, knowing that he isn’t going to be right every day, but days like that are great for him.”
Bonner had words of advice for the 23-year-old after he’d been getting some stick prior to the game, saying: “Forget what anybody else says about you. The two people that matter most is yourself and what you think of yourself and me.
“I give him the confidence to keep playing. If we can make him a better player and have the impact on our team, then great. That’s what we want to do.
“I think he’s coped quite well!
“He came on and did exactly what he needed to do.
“We had a brilliant chat in the week. He went on and did really well.
“He’s just got back himself. Loads of them have got qualities that they can bring to games and cause problems.
“Everyone expects the world all the time from everyone. That’s the nature of it. That’s a little bit the ambition and the demand, but that’s where we have to have the personality to handle that and players have got to back themselves to keep getting better and do what they’re best at as regularly as possible.”
