Average was enough for Gillingham on Saturday as manager Mark Bonner admitted they could have done more.
The Gills won 2-0 against Barrow, with goals either half from Jayden Clarke and Robbie McKenzie, but Bonner felt they could have made things easier for themselves,
Report: Gillingham 2 Barrow 0
“I just thought the game was average,” said the Gills boss. “I thought we were pretty average as well.
“It was enough to win but if we want to stay where we are and we want to keep being a team that wins, we can do better than that, no question about it.
“I think everybody would know, and our players definitely know, there’s more in us than that.
“We didn’t play enough. We didn’t pass the ball well enough. We created our own pressure on our goal in certain situations.
“I wasn’t (pleased with the performance) but it’s a good result. I just thought the level of the game was poor.
“I’m really happy that we’ve got a result and kept a clean sheet but the good thing is that you can do that on days where you’re maybe not at your best.
“I think the game was quite an uncomfortable game and it didn’t need to be. It was an opportunity for us to be much more dominant with the ball and we’ve given up some really sloppy moments.
“It became a really open, transitional game in the first half and we didn’t want it to look like that. It was so stretched. We’ve ended up running much bigger distances in the heat than we needed to.”
The Gills went into the break a goal ahead after McKenzie’s defence-splitting pass fed Clarke and he scored with a composed finish.
“It was a really good move,” said the manager.
“I was happy with that. We just didn’t create enough pressure, to be honest, in the first half and we probably needed to go on and be better in the second half.”
Barrow started the second half strongly but the Gills scored a crucial second as McKenzie converted at the back stick from Jack Nolan’s corner.
Bonner said: “We didn’t want the game to look like that but fair play to them. They made it more like they wanted it to look than we wanted it to look. That’s the battle.
“We still came out on top in it, which is an important skill.
“I didn’t really like how we closed the game out. I thought we gave them too much of the ball, really, and we could have been a little bit more aggressive to get up against them.
“I think we could have gone and scored the next goal in that game (at 2-0).
“We weren’t playing with ten men away from home, or at home, and we weren’t on the ropes. The start to the second half is just us not winning a first contact. Us making a foul. Us shanking a ball and then giving away a free kick. It’s just like we’ve caused our own problems against them.
“So, miles more to come. Miles better to come from us. We were able to get some players on the pitch, which was good and we changed things around a little bit.
“Understandably, the second goal is a big one in that game and the context of the game does change. You do get a little bit deeper and you keep them in front and I get that. That’s fine. There’ll be plenty of games like that.
“We just lacked a little bit of the intensity that we needed, probably because we ran ourselves into the ground first half, making it a game it didn’t need to be.
“But we’re fine. We’re happy. We’ll take it. We’ll crack on and get ready for the next one.”
