Gillingham play the bottom three teams in their next four league matches - but the head coach won’t allow the table to dictate their thinking.

Stephen Clemence takes his Gills team to second-bottom Forest Green Rovers on Friday night and after hosting mid-table Crawley Town on Boxing Day they welcome basement side Sutton United three days later and before a trip to third-from-bottom Colchester United on New Year’s Day.

More: Deeney takes charge at Forest Green

“Every game is tough and it doesn’t matter who you are playing,” Clemence said.

“I got promoted automatically at Birmingham as a player back in the day. We beat the teams at the top but lost to the teams at the bottom of the table.

“You can never tell in football, like I said when we were going to Barrow the other week. It is a green pitch, 11 versus 11 and you do get results that are not expected.

“All we can do as a group of people, staff and players, is prepare as well as we can and be as focused as we can on the next game that comes up.”

The Gills will be looking to bounce back from a disappointing home game with Bradford City last Saturday, which ended in a 2-0 defeat, a loss that left them 10th in League 2, now nine points adrift of the automatic promotion places.

“The lads know the standards that are expected,” Clemence said. “They had two shots on target and scored two goals.

“I know and feel we can play a lot better than that and that will be the aim.

“There is a lot to learn from, a lot of games are coming up, we took that one on the chin.

“It’s the Christmas period and the games are coming thick and fast.

“We take our medicine, we are going to be disappointed, we have to dust ourselves down very quickly because there is another game coming, we will have to be ready for that one.

“We win together and lose together. Everyone was giving us pats on the back the other week (after beating Charlton in the FA Cup), and we understand now we might get a bit of criticism and that’s football, but it how you react.

“There is an opportunity on Friday to bounce back and that is what we will aim to do.”

The game at Forest Green kicks off at the earlier time of 7pm. Gillingham’s Boxing Day game at Priestfield against Crawley is a 1pm start.

*Gillingham’s match against Stockport County at Priestfield has been rearranged for Tuesday, February 20. The match was moved to accommodate Gills’ FA Cup Third Round home game against Premier League Sheffield United.

Tickets for the cup game on Saturday, January 6 are on general sale with adult prices starting from £25, seniors £21, under-18s £13 and under-14s at £10.