Returning Gillingham midfielder Stuart O'Keefe believes they need to earn the right to play.

Speaking on the back of a poor display in a 3-0 loss at Tranmere on Saturday, O'Keefe felt that the Gills didn't show enough fight.

"First and foremost it's not a good enough performance, it's not a Neil Harris team performance," said O'Keefe.

"We didn't compete from the first minute to the last, we didn't win enough headers, we didn't win enough second balls, we didn't win enough battles.

"When you come up north you've got to compete and fight, and earn the right to play. You can't just turn it on and off.

"The travelling fans have spent their time and money to come up on a good weekend, it's not acceptable and we're going to put it right.

"The nature of the goals was very poor but the whole game we didn't compete. They smelt blood after the first couple of minutes when they had a couple of chances and hit the post and it set the tone.

"We can't come here and expect to play as well as we have done, we have to earn the right and we didn't do that.

"It's a hard league, you have to be robust and up for the challenge and we wasn't. We got what we deserved.

"If you don't compete you are going to get turned over and that's what happened, we were overpowered and beaten up.

"It's not what we want to be, we don't want to be a soft touch, we want to be competitive and aggressive in our own right and we want to come here and challenge."

While O'Keefe was critical of Gillingham's display, he did put into context that it was only one game and it came on the back of two good displays against Rochdale the previous weekend and at AFC Wimbledon in the Carabao Cup.

"It's still early days, you can't lose sight of the fact we were excellent against Rochdale," he noted. "It was an enjoyable game of football to watch and we were outstanding.

"We can't get too high with them games and too low with this game.

"Fortunately we've got another game on Tuesday and Saturday at home, we need to recover properly and make sure we put in a better performance.

"The fans have been excellent so far, they stuck with us and deserve better than that on Saturday. With two home games coming up, it's down to us now to put in a good performance.

"We'll watch the game back and analyse it but overall it comes down to aggression, maybe willingness, maybe attitude, desire, commitment.

"Maybe on the back of two good performances we thought we could turn up and play a bit. But when you come to Tranmere, you know you have to fight and battle, and that should come before anything.

"We did have two good performances in the week before and we need to concentrate on turning that around quickly and putting it right.

"It comes down to not winning the first and second balls, we don't need to look too far into that. Max Ehmer did go off and we were a bit disjointed but the nature of the goals wasn't good enough and you're still a professional footballer, and still have to make decisions on the pitch regardless of what's gone on."

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O'Keefe made his first appearance of the season at Tranmere, coming on at the hour mark.

By his own admission, the 31-year-old needs minutes now to get back up to full speed.

"It was good to get out there and get half-hour," said O'Keefe.

"I've had a few weeks out so I need to get my minutes up and get back up to the pace. With the games coming up hopefully that will happen."

On hosting Harrogate on Tuesday and Walsall this Saturday, he added: "That's the only positive, we've two home games this week. We need to make sure we put in a Rochdale performance on Tuesday.

"We can't dwell on this, we need to acknowledge that we weren't good enough but we need to realise how good we were last week."