“WE WERE our own worst enemies,” was the brutally honest assessment by Gillingham player-manager Andy Hessenthaler after his side’s 3-1 defeat to Sheffield United saw them go second from bottom.

Sunday's televised Coca-Cola Championship game at Priestfield was meant to be the dawn of a new era, instead the side made the same frustrating mistakes at the back and were punished by former player Paul Shaw and Michael Tonge.

Hessenthaler said: “It was a disappointing performance and result. Their first goal came from a long throw, which we spoke about before the game. We knew they had that, yet we did not pick up Shaw.

“If you’re going to defend like that you give yourself a mountain to climb. That’s been our problem at home this season, we have not defended well as a team.”

Gillingham’s most experienced defender Chris Hope was especially poor. Hessenthaler said: “Chris will be disappointed with his performance, but so will most players.

“We’re not doing basic defending and until we get that right, we’re going to struggle. Two of their goals came when we had the ball in their half so we were our own worst enemies today.

”We have got to start defending properly. If it means we’ve got to start drawing games 0-0 at home and be a little bit boring, but harder to play against then perhaps that’s what we have to do.”

Hessenthaler admitted there was only two positives to take from the game, but even that was bittersweet as both players are in on loan.

He said: “We huffed and puffed and had opportunities like Adam Nowland’s great effort. He was our best player today, but he’s not our player. That’s the unfortunate thing.

“We’ve only got him for one more game. It’s down to Alan Pardew if we can keep him for longer. He won’t be playing against West Ham next week because they won’t let him, but I’ll speak to his manager and we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Speaking about John Robinson’s debut, Hessenthaler added: “John is here for three months from Cardiff and he did well considering he’s only been here a couple of days. We’ll work him into the team and hopefully he’ll bring a bit of experience, which we need.”

Always the optimist Hessenthaler refused to be completely downhearted: “We’ve got to keep digging in. There’s still a long way to go, nothing’s decided in October,” he said.