Gillingham manager Mark Bonner believes some of his more experienced players must do more to help them get their season back on track.
The Gills play away to old rivals Swindon Town this Saturday, badly needing a positive result to end a run of five successive defeats. It’s a run of form that’s seen them drop from first to 11th in League 2.
Joe Gbode’s made the most of his chance during the ongoing injury issues this season, while former non-league hotshot Marcus Wyllie kept at it during a frustrating midweek defeat against Newport. Jayden Clarke’s also remained involved but Bonner wants to see more from his more experienced campaigners.
He said: “Our best performers and best performances are coming from players that maybe haven’t been at this level, or haven’t been the ones that are so highly thought of in the past, in our team this season.
“A lot of the others that have got experience, or that have played more, they’ve got to step up because it’s all well and good talking about wanting to be a good team. Good teams don’t lose five games on the bounce.
“There’s loads of performances that aren’t at the same level that they need to be. They should be self-aware enough to know, ‘Right, I’ve got to do more’.
“They should tell each other if they’ve got personality and a proper togetherness, they should be able to drive each other.
“We speak to them every day and give them feedback and tell them every day where we feel they’re at and just look at the league table and recent results. If that isn’t enough to make you open your eyes and say, ‘yeah, we’re nowhere near as good as everyone thinks we are and we think we are’.
“I do believe that it can improve. And I do believe that when everybody’s fit and available, we can do it. But we certainly haven’t done it in the last few weeks.
“We’ve got a big game at Swindon at the weekend, which we need to go and get something from. We said that [on Tuesday] and we said that last weekend. These aren’t runs that you want to be going on.
“Players have to step up. At the moment, the squad that was there is pretty much the squad at the minute. There’s not going to be many changes for the weekend.
“So, let’s see what the spirit is like. We’ve talked about this group having a good spirit and a good togetherness.”
