Robbie McKenzie returned to Gillingham’s starting eleven and scored against Bromley but was left questioning the team’s fighting spirit after another defeat.
McKenzie fired home from the edge of the box to cancel out Bromley’s opener in the League 2 match on Wednesday night but then watched on as their lowly opponents scored another to win 2-1.
Mark Bonner: “We’re bang average – at best!”
The midfielder was making his first start in two months and his performance was one of few positive highlights in the defeat for the Gills.
He spoke to the media afterwards, saying: “We got ourselves back in the game and then we shot ourselves in the foot again. We need to find a way to stop doing it.
“Only we can figure out how that is but we need to do it and we need to do it fast.
“The next game comes fast, so we’re going to have to learn quickly and go from there.
“I just think we need to go back to basics really and fight for things a bit more.
“We need a bit more fight in there and hopefully things are going to turn around, but we’re the only ones that can do that and we need to realise fast.
“We need to find something and something from somewhere fast.”
The Gills return to Priestfield on Saturday to play a Salford team who have won their last two games, in the FA Cup against Cheltenham and with a 2-0 midweek win over Harrogate.
Every defeat puts extra pressure on a Gills team that started the season with big ambitions, but McKenzie said: “Every game’s a big gameon the run that we’re on.
“We need to end the run as quick as possible and it’s only us that’s going to do that.
“I think at times we don’t help ourselves in games.
“We need to turn things around, but every game’s going to be big, the ambition of the club is where it is, so we need to match that ambition in the changing room and fight for every game and try and get a win in every game, but realistically, is it going to happen every game? No, but we need to try and fight for that.”
McKenzie’s got three goals this season now, joint second top scorer. Only Jayden Clarke, with five, has scored more.
His goal on Wednesday was bitter-sweet.
He said: “I’d love to have got something from the game and I know everyone in the changing room would have loved to have got something from the game, but it wasn’t meant to be.
“We’re going to have to dust ourselves down and go again.”
