by Alex Hoad

Mark Stimson has questioned whether his players have the ‘bottle’ for a relegation scrap and called on his side to prove that they do.

After Tuesday night’s dismal 1-0 home defeat against Tranmere, the Gills boss said: "It looks like some of the players are lacking in confidence but me, personally, I’d say bottle.

"To me, some of them are thinking ‘I might get a whack here.’ Well, so what, get a whack, get up and get on with it.

"Some of them don’t want to get that whack and that’s hard for me to take because they have got so much ability."

Stimson said some of his players were "possibly not standing up to be counted" and added: "Some might have started thinking they have arrived because they’re in League 1.

"If they have then they shouldn’t. Their aim should be to move even higher up the ladder."

Stimson insists he still has the support of the dressing room, saying: "I don’t think the players are against me. If they were, I’d be surprised."

He said: "It doesn’t matter who is in charge, whether it’s me or Mr Capello. The players have to do it, we can only help them so much.

"We’re in a fantastic league and want to stay in it. It took a lot of hard work last year to get in and we can’t just let that go by not giving it everything we’ve got."

He added: "I’m not happy (to be in the bottom four) but the big picture is that there are some very, very good football players here who just need nursing along and a bit of know-how on the football pitch to get the best out of them."

Stimson said possibly introducing influential characters into the team to "do things the crowd won’t hear" could benefit his side.

He said: "We need someone to use the right language on the pitch and get people firing on all cylinders. We might have to get a few in there who might not be crowd favourites but could give us the chance to win games."

He added: "Adam Miller falls into that category. He’s been the most disappointed person the past three games that he hasn’t played. It might be time. You’ve got to be arrogant and horrible, he can do that.

"A few are looking after themselves maybe, thinking, ‘I played better than him,’ or ‘he was rubbish.’ We don’t want that."

Stimson said he was hoping slipping into the relegation zone might act as a wake-up call to his players.

He said: "Sometimes if it comes earlier you can do something about it. If it’s with only a game or two to go it’s a problem. Now we’re in it, we’ve got to get back out of it."