Gillingham manager Mark Bonner’s hinted at making changes in January.

The transfer window is just a month away and after another painful weekend, Bonner’s keen to see which players are up for the fight.

Last Saturday’s 2-1 home defeat to lowly Harrogate was another blow to a team that started the season as one of the division’s promotion favourites.

Since the end of September, they’ve taken just four points from a possible 24. It’s far from promotion form and Bonner knows it needs to change.

He said: “The project’s big and we need to keep adding to the squad because after 16 games we’re showing too many patterns of the team that’s been average for the last couple of years and if we want to be a better team than that, we’re going to have to change things quite a bit.

“When we’ve played the top teams and we've had a bit of fight in us and we’ve got ourselves ahead, that hasn't been the case at all, it’s been completely different. That is a mentality thing.

“There’s no good being a good team one week and a bad one the next. That’s a waste of everyone’s time and money. What’s the point?

“We’re either going to do it properly or we’re not. The players will either do it or they won’t do it and I’ll either be here to do it or I won’t be but in the end, it’s one of them.”

What’s frustrating the fans and manager alike is the team’s inability to build on taking the lead. They’ve gone ahead in five of their last six league games, but won just once, with a 1-0 victory against Port Vale.

Fans voiced their displeasure at Priestfield as the team were booed off after the final whistle.

Bonner said: “Whether it’s a fear in the team, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter what it is. We’ve got to work out what it is. We’ve got to work out who can do it regularly and who can’t. Who wants to do it and who can’t. Whose body language is ‘I’m sulking because I’m not playing or I’ve not played’. It’s just pathetic.

“The second half (last Saturday) in the end was just horrid. ‘What a load of rubbish’ gets sang [by the supporters] at full-time, we get booed off and no-one’s wrong.

“The players know that as well. It was rubbish in the end. We didn’t deserve anything from the game.

“It’s a pattern of a couple of the games here against a few of the sides that we’ve played against that have, in the end, ran a bit harder, fought a bit more in the key moments where they needed to.

“We’ve got to get a balance here of being a team that can do that, that fight and scrap a bit, but can dominate a game and create a chance and make their goalkeeper work. Too often that hasn’t happened.

“We haven’t looked a threatening enough side anywhere near enough.

“I think there’s lots to do. There’s lots of changes needed. There’s lots of time to see who’s coming, who’s with us on this. January’s around the [corner]. Who’s in the fight for the season?

“Lots of players are in the last year with their contract, who’s fighting to stay with it and wants to be a team that takes us where we want to get to? That is the question to everybody, really.

“There’s opportunity and potential for huge change. Maybe not so much January, but certainly the end of the season.

“We don’t want to be this team that has little streaky periods and is okay one week and not the next. If we’re going to do what we want to do, that’s a long way from it. We’ve seen snippets and highlights of it looking like we want to at times this year but we’re yet to put that together.

“Part of that is sometimes player availability and things like that and getting people up to speed. We’ve had our issues with that. But at the same time, there’s enough good players on the pitch.

“There’s enough experience on the pitch. There’s enough quality on the pitch. But there isn’t enough personality on the pitch too often, or there isn’t enough athleticism on the pitch too often for us to be the team I want us to be at the moment.”

It’s FA Cup second round weekend coming up which means Gillingham are without a game again this Saturday. They return to action on Wednesday night when they make the short trip to face South London side Bromley.