Gillingham manager John Coleman won’t put up with players who don’t want to work hard.

Prior to the appointment of Coleman, some fans had accused players of not putting in the effort needed. Chants of “you’re not fit to wear the shirt” have been heard during a tough recent period that led to the sacking of Mark Bonner.

New boss Coleman will be hoping to build bridges now he’s taken over from Bonner. He’ll make his own judgement on the players but there’ll be no room for those who don’t want to try.

Coleman said: “There's no guarantee you can deliver results in football. There's lots of things that can go wrong on a day that's out of your control but one thing that is in your control is you can fight for every ball, you can play on the front foot, you can play attacking football. They're in your remit and that's what we're trying to do.

“If you don't want to work hard enough, you won't play for me. That's just a fact of life.

“I know all players are different and some players can give the impression that they're not working hard but if I don't see the effort and the desire, they certainly won't be playing for this club.

“I think that's the minimum you should expect as a football fan.

“Sometimes people say, ‘isn't it great the way you do it, how hard you work?’ I don't think you should be praised for that really.

“I think that's the minimum of what you should do. That is what I'm looking for. That's what I've got.

“It's a firm ethos of mine. The harder you work, the luckier you get. It doesn't always pan out like that, but it can feel like that.”

Coleman was asked if the squad has the same desire and hunger to win that he does.

“I'll find that out in the next week, that's for sure,” he replied.

“Ultimately, people can go on about football clubs and what's the most important thing about football clubs.

“As a football club, you can be great off the pitch and all that, but if you're going to get results, you're only as good as your players.

“You can get your players to perform better and you can get them to have more desire. A little bit more desire, I think. Some of that's either in you or it isn't.

“You can't make really bad players into really good players but you can organise them and you can give them an ethos, you can give them a style.

“Ultimately, I think the big thing is you've got to get a buy-in off the fans. From how the players are going to play, that's got to be a marriage between the players and the fans and you feel that, you feel so proud when you see the players celebrating with the fans after they've won a game. I'm a firm believer in that.

“A county cup game, I'm celebrating that. I want to win every game. People say: ‘Well, you must have wanted that a bit more’. You can't want to win any more for whatever game. If I play a game of five-a-side, you can only want to win 100%. I can't change that. I can't lift myself past 100%.

“I think the biggest compliment you can get as a manager is when the game's finished and you've shook hands and you go into your room, or you go into the opposition manager's room when you’re away, and the first thing they say to you is: ‘Your lads worked hard today’.

“I want that to be said to me 23 times this season.”