by Luke Cawdell

Gillingham manager Andy Hessenthaler was left a little disappointed that his side couldn’t take full advantage of a much-improved away performance on Saturday.

Port Vale were knocked off top spot by the Gills after Hessenthaler’s men held the league leaders to a goalless draw and came agonisingly close to beating them.

“We deserved to win it,” said the Gills boss (pictured).

“Over 90 minutes we were the better side. We have had to question ourselves over the last few weeks, especially after the game at Accrington, and as a group and you could see from the fan reaction at the end they saw the players wearing their heart on their sleeve and they all put a shift in.

“We had a kick in the teeth in the week when we lost both of our strikers and we juggled it around a bit, with Dennis Oli playing up there on his own and Curtis just off him, but I couldn’t pick a man of the match – the boys were tremendous.”

The draw extended the Gills’ run without a win away from home but Hessenthaler wasn’t interested in statistics after seeing his team play so well.

He said: “We are not worried about that now and I said to the players forget about that.

“This win will come if they keep working their socks off and putting in performance like that.

“We will get a result away from home without a doubt and the fans could see that. We have set a standard now against a team who were top of the table.”

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