The January sales can’t come quick enough for Gillingham manager Steve Evans.

He was left questioning the efforts of some on Tuesday night as they slumped to a 3-1 defeat against strugglers Northampton Town. Their opponents had lost both of their previous matches 4-0.

Gillingham, in contrast, had beaten Rochdale 4-1 and could have moved to within three points of the League 1 play-off places with a win.

Evans, whose side head to Plymouth on Saturday, said: “You have to turn up and fight and earn everything you get, we didn’t turn up and fight hard enough.

“If eleven fight you have a chance. We had some who were fighting and some who were not but we can deal with that in January.

“We need to reinforce. If we don’t strengthen the group then there is no point me being here. I want to maximise what we can get and that is not a threat, the chairman has been very positive and supportive.

“We will try and do bits of business and that game (against Northampton) has proved we need to.

“I have spoken to managers and clubs and directors of football and agents but we don’t speak to the player, not until something is agreed, and clubs are working hard to get their own business done. Sometimes you are in a pecking order.

“One or two we hope we can get done sooner than later.

“You can’t turn up and play like we did on Tuesday. That is not good enough by a long stretch and my eyes don’t tell me lies, I have too much experience, too much knowledge, it doesn’t make it very good when I watch my team produce that.”

Inconsistency is making it hard to close that gap, said Evans.

"It is why we are where we are. We have players who can play against any team in this league and do really well and they suddenly think they have arrived and I said to some of them in the changing room, you don't need to look at a league table, we’ve not been higher than ninth or 10th, we haven't got a right, but some of them think they have."

Plymouth are three points worse off than the Gills, losing 3-2 at home to Oxford United last time out.

Evans said: “Injuries have hit us during a vital period but the sooner we go to Plymouth and come out of Plymouth and we can do some business the better.

“We are not defeatist, we are not down, we will got to Plymouth and expect a positive result and then we will try and add the two or three we need.”

Read more on the Gills