Gillingham manager Neil Harris admits he’s still searching for the right formula in a bid to get his side firing infront of goal.

With just one league goal in Gillingham’s opening six League 2 outings, the lack of potency is a worry. A 1-0 defeat at Carlisle on Saturday was the team’s fifth successive game without scoring in senior competitions - over 450 minutes of football.

Harris said: “I am searching for the right formulas at the moment, searching for the right personnel to give us that spark. We haven’t scored so I have got it wrong.

“I am striving, I am honest, I am searching for the right formulas, the right combinations, for us to score goals. I know we are doing the right work on the training pitch because I have been through these situations before where the team is striving and I am as a manager to find combinations, I need to find them quickly.

“I am not afraid to change personnel. We still have a few days left of the transfer window. I have to seriously think about the group and see what happens over the next few days.

“I have got faith in the group, as individual players, faith in us more as a defensive unit, we just have to now get the top end of the pitch right.

“The first goal is key in games, you can’t be chasing games away from home all the time, it is three away games in the league and we have lost three games. We have to find that steel we have had at home so far. Apart from the Harrogate counter-attack stuff, we have to find it, I have to get the balance right and I am working tirelessly to get that balance.”

Harris signed Lewis Walker, Mikael Mandron, Hakeeb Adelakun, Jordan Green and Scott Kashket this summer and he needs to figure out the best combination alongside the likes of Ben Reeves, Olly Lee and Alex MacDonald who have remained from last term. He hasn't ruled out another addition up top but that is dependent on the budget.

And while accepting he has work to do on that front, the players must perform too.

He said: “I brought the players in for the right reasons, with different skill sets, everyone is excited when they come in, people think, ‘oh they could be good for us', or say ‘he is a Gillingham player’, but then I am searching for the right combination.

“I want to make sure I don’t drain their confidence, but ultimately that is their job, they get paid to score goals and be creative, I am not asking them to do something they can’t do, I know they can do it which is why I brought them in in the first place.

“Sometimes as a manager you have to say, ‘right, come on lads, I want more now’, it is not what I can do for you, ‘come on, what are you going to do for me and the football club?’ That is what I need to see.”