Gillingham manager Gareth Ainsworth admits he can only give people so many chances.
The Gills are falling away from the League 2 promotion race and haven’t won a game in almost two months. A nine-game winless run leaves them 16th in the table ahead of a trip to Notts County on Sunday.
With the transfer window open, Ainsworth now has the chance to make changes, although making deals happen won’t be easy.
He said: “You give chances to people, chances appear, and you have to take those chances, that’s football.
“You have to be at the top of your game every single time you go out on a pitch, every single moment you pass a ball, make a tackle, win a header, have a shot, defend a shot, you’ve got to do it as good as anything, because there’s always someone willing to come in and do it and say ‘I’ll have a go, I’ll take your place’.
“That’s what football is, and unfortunately, we’re not taking our chances at the moment.
“I feel for the boys, I know they’re giving everything, it’s just not going in, but there’s only so long I can tolerate that.
“I have to make changes because people will demand changes, people will start demanding results, and I’m employed to get results.”
Manager Gareth Ainsworth is looking to sign a striker and believes he will be backed if the right player becomes available this month.
He said: “We’ve got the backing of (owners) the Galinsons, but I think that over the last two or three years they’ve collected players that haven’t been right and they’re trying to solve gaps and patch things up.
“We can’t make mistakes with players, otherwise we’re just going to add another couple of years onto this cycle and you can’t do that here, you have to change it all so we get the right ones in, the ones who will make a difference.
“Believe me, they’re very hard to get. The window’s open and clubs have signed players but they’ve paid over the odds, and big money for players, that’s where the market’s going now, so we have to be very careful we’re not getting sucked into that.
“I know Brad and Shannon (Galinson) are up for backing us if there’s some things we want to do in the window.”
Ainsworth is mindful of the finances, however.
He said: “Clubs get into trouble, not just financially, but with pressures and reputations and things like that, by spending stupid money on players that we don’t believe are that price and we won’t do that, I won’t do that personally, I just don’t do that, but we have to change something to start scoring goals and that’s big for me.
“I’m looking at ways to solve this and is that personnel rather than formation, systems, the way we train, the way we play? I’m going to have to look at the whole lot.”
The Gills boss will be assessing his loan recruits, including Wigan’s Jonny Smith, who hit the woodwork when he came off the bench at Swindon.
“We’ll have a look at that,” said the Gills boss.
“It was good to see him back, he had a fantastic effort off the post, and a couple of decent moments on the ball.
“We just need to see one of those (chances) go in.
“If somebody did that to us it’d probably hit the post, hit the back of the keeper’s head, and go in, and that’s what we might need.
“A little bit of luck wouldn’t go amiss at the moment, but we’ll keep trying, and there’s no way you’ll put me down.”
