Mikael Mandron scored his first Football League goal for Gillingham on Saturday – and he’s hoping it’s the first of many.

Mandron netted for the Gills with 10 minutes left against Peterborough. It halved the deficit, having trailed 2-0, but the Gills were unable to get another.

“It is very important for me to get my first goal in the league and hopefully I will be able to get many more,” said the French forward.

“Sometimes as a striker you think ‘I just need to get that first one’ to then get going. Hopefully I can score many more goals.”

Speaking about the result, he said: “It was a tough one to take, they are third in the league and they beat us by scoring a worldy and a penalty.

“We had loads of half chances and on a different day we could have gone away with three points, or at least one. That is football and we have to go again on Tuesday (at Shrewsbury).”

Before he netted, Mandron had another good chance, which he failed to connect with.

“It looked easier than it was,” said the striker, who turned 25 last week. “The ball came over my head and over my shoulder, I was stretching for it and in my head I was thinking ‘any contact will do’ but I just couldn’t get any on it. On a different day it could have gone in.”

Saturday’s goal was Mandron’s second for the club, his other one coming in the EFL Trophy.

Gillingham were unable to turn their pressure into points on Saturday, but Mandron was pleased that they were getting into good positions.

He said: “The whole team works really hard to try and create those chances, but every game is very different.

“There are games we will have loads of chances and score and games when you don’t have many. As long as we keep getting into the right areas, we will be able to create more chances and score more goals.”

On Tuesday, the Gills visit a Shrewsbury team who have one of the tightest defences in League 1.

Mandron believes they have to make sure their own backline is sound before worrying about scoring.

He said: “When you play away from home you focus on the defensive aspect of the game first, make sure you are nice and tight and don’t concede.

“Shrewsbury are very good defensively so we will have to be quite cute and try and work as hard as we can to create chances and score.”

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