Tom Flanagan puts in a tackle against Rochdale Picture: Barry Goodwin

by Luke Cawdell

It will take more than one defeat to knock Gillingham’s confidence insists defender Tom Flanagan.

The Gills ended their unbeaten start to their League 2 campaign after losing 2-1 to Rochdale on Saturday.

But on-loan MK Dons defender Flanagan isn’t overly concerned over the blip.

“We are not down,” he said. “We have 37 games left and to lose one game means nothing.

“We will just start again and go unbeaten in eight now. We might lose our ninth game but if we then go another eight unbeaten and carry on like that we will get promoted. That’s the way we see it and that’s the confidence we have.”

Despite the confidence the 20-year-old isn’t getting carried away.

He said: “We take it game by game. Nobody has even been talking about promotion yet.

“Obviously we have had a great start to the season but people have had great starts before and ended up almost being relegated so it means nothing at the moment.

“We will just stick to the plan we have got. We have got a good structure and we will bounce back on Tuesday (against Northampton).”

Flanagan put Saturday’s defeat down to the dismissal of Danny Jackman – a decision unsurprisingly not supported by the players in the changing room.

He said: “We are a little disappointed with the decision and Jacko doesn’t think he was in the wrong. We have got to stick by that.

“It hasn’t helped but we have raced away and everyone is going to come here (to Priestfield) and give it an extra 10-15%. We are going to have to up it even more but the lads aren’t too down and if we can win on Tuesday we will stay clear.

“If we had 11 men (on Saturday) we would have absolutely battered them. They really struggled in the second half. We had loads of chances, got the penalty and maybe could have had a penalty in the first half. If we were two play two halves of football like the second there would be nobody that could live with us.”

Read more from Flanagan in Monday's Medway Messenger newspaper.