Gillingham 2 Burnley 2

GILLINGHAM striker Guy Ipoua publicly apologised after spurning two glorious chances to steal the points against Burnley last night. The Cameroon-born forward failed to hit the target twice with just Burnley keeper Nikolaos Michopoulos to beat in the closing minutes and felt the urge to say sorry, despite earlier grabbing his third goal in consecutive games.

He said: "First of all I would like to apologise to the fans, my team-mates and the manager because I missed a chance that would have made it 3-0 and I think the game would have been won. But I apologise and now I have got to work on my finishing so I can be better.

"We are very disappointed because when you are 2-0 up and playing on your own ground you are expected to win. But we have got a point and must remember that we are coming out of a bad run of losing games and now it's two games and four points."

Manager Andy Hessenthaler said: "Guy apologised to me afterwards for missing two chances but he has got nothing to be sorry about. He can be frustrating at times but he is such a handful for defenders at the moment. He is playing terrific football and something always looks like happening when he gets the ball. I thought he had another good game. He's disappointed and is absolutely gutted."

Simon Osborn slotted his first goal for Gillingham eight minutes into the match after Nayron Nosworthy’s cross was only palmed away by Burnley keeper Nikolaos Michopoulos. The Gills doubled their advantage seven minutes later when Guy Ipoua turned home his third goal in as many games from a David Perpetuini knock-down. However, the two-goal cushion only lasted until just past the hour mark when Gareth Taylor headed in Dean West's precise cross and worse was to come for Gillingham in the early stages of the second period as referee Clive Wilkes awarded a controversial penalty for handball.

Burnley’s Glenn Little made no mistake from the spot.

Taking of the debatable penalty Hessenthaler said: "From where I was, I don't think David (Perpetuini) stuck his arm out. I think he just stood up and the ball's come at pace and hit him. Some you get and some you don't and it's gone against us."

The manager added: "We have just ended a run of five games without a win and we have to put together an unbeaten run. That is now a win and a draw for us but I'm disappointed we didn't win. We stopped playing football and just knocked long balls to our two big lads up front. We stopped passing the ball and they were better than us for a time but we finished quite strongly."