Stoke 2 Gillingham 0

A DISAPPOINTED Andy Hessenthaler made no excuses for Gillingham’s dismal performance in their defeat at Stoke City on Saturday. “We were not good enough today,” said the player-manager.

Goals from Gifton Noel-Williams and former Gills striker Ade Akinbiyi earned the points to see Stoke go fourth in the Coca-Cola Championship table and drop Gills seven places to 11th.

Hessenthaler said: “Six or seven out of the 11 did not perform and you cannot carry that many players in a game and expect to get something from it. You’ve got to give some credit to Stoke. I thought their two boys up front caused us big problems and we couldn’t handle them.”

After a decent start to the new campaign, Hessenthaler was at a loss to explain his team’s display.

He added: “We were poor and know we can do a lot better. We defended far too deep, especially in the first half. They pushed us back and we were defending balls in our own 18-yard box.

“For the goal it was a joke how deep we were. Our centre halves looked worried. They must believe in themselves a bit more.

“They knew about Ade’s pace and dropped off to try and deny him space behind but that just left big gaps all over the place.

“They caused us problems but we also caused our own problems by the way we defended.”

Gills made a tactical change at the break, bringing on Matt Jarvis for Patrick Agyemang and reverting to 4-4-2.

“To be fair to Patrick, the way we were playing any number of players could have been taken off,” Hessenthaler added. “When we brought Richard Rose off it was because I felt he had lost a little bit of confidence on the ball and Darren Byfield came off as he has a problem with his knee.”

“In the second half, we had control of the ball at times but without really hurting them and then gave another sloppy goal away.

“That was us last year and we can’t allow ourselves to go back to that. We know when you come away from home you have to keep it tight, make it difficult for the home side, yet we didn’t do that today.

“We know we have to do a lot better. Fortunately for us, we have a game on Tuesday against Northampton Town in the league cup and now we’ve been beaten today, it makes that a little bit harder.

“They are one of the favourites in their division (Football League 2), so we must make sure we bounce back. Then we play QPR in the league live on Sky on Friday night, so we have to put this one behind us.”

Byfield is a doubt for Tuesday's game as is John Hills who has a thigh strain.

* DARIUS HENDERSON made an immediate impact in the first game of his loan spell at Swindon.

The Gills striker, who joined Swindon on a month’s loan on Friday, scored both goals as the Robins beat League One favourites Bristol City 2-1. He also also being denied the chance of a hat-trick after twice hitting the woodwork.