Crewe 1 Gillingham 1

DAVID PERPETUINI had no hesitation in nominating his goal in a million at Crewe on Saturday as the best of his career.

The Gillingham midfielder beat Crewe goalkeeper Clayton Ince from all of 35 yards to earn the club a point for a 1-1 draw while posting an irrepressible contender for Goal of the Season.

"I can say without having to think twice that it was the best goal of my career, and that includes schoolboy level," he said.

"The ball just sat up nicely and I thought to myself, I'm going to have a go. It dipped at the last minute and I think that's what deceived their goalkeeper who thought it was going over."

He added: "I thought we ran the game in the second half and there were disappointed faces in the dressing room afterwards as a lot of the lads believed we were good enough to have won."

But while Gillingham player-manager Andy Hessenthaler acclaimed the goal as one of the best he had seen, opposite number Dario Gradi took a different view and berated Ince for taking his eye off the ball.

Dismissing the quality of the strike, Gradi said: "You could say that Gillingham's Jason Brown made an error for our goal and Clayton Ince made one for theirs.

"Brown didn't get much of a punch on the ball for his clearance but their goal came from awful keeping. I'm pleased with a point because we never played well."

Hessenthaler, meanwhile, threw down a challenge to Perpetuini to raise the level of consistency in his game to keep his place.

He had only broken back into the side on Saturday as cover for his suspended manager.

"David came into the side for the match against Crewe at home and we won that game," he said. "Then I left him out for the next game against Wimbledon, which we lost.

"He's had a good game today, like most of them, and it was a fantastic strike for the goal. He gives us a good balance on the left side and I've told him what he's got to do to stay in the side, which is to play like he did today on a more consistent basis.

"So he hasn't done himself any harm with that performance."

Hessenthaler considered the team's performance good enough to extract maximum points from what is always a difficult venue.

He said: "Crewe are a good side at home, and remember they beat Sunderland 3-0 here, which is no mean feat. They have also beaten Reading here as well.

"But we've come and been the better side, so it's frustrating because we had so much of the ball and we've only come away with a point.

"Perhaps I'm being over-critical because I was extremely pleased with the performance. What we need is that fox in the box who can put the ball in the back of the net.

With the chances we've had today, we should have won. We broke their play up and I think that Dario would admit that their passing was sloppy because of that."

Hessenthaler confirmed that striker Tommy Johnson would undergo a scan today (Monday) following an injury sustained in training on Friday that kept him out of Saturday's side.

"We had a problem before the game what with Tommy dropping out so I brought in Kevin James to link up with Nyron down the right and thought that together they caused them problems."