Gillingham manager Steve Lovell labelled his side’s defending as ridiculous after conceding against Barnsley in the opening seconds.

The League 1 high-flyers were ahead with just 15 seconds on the clock, after Keiffer Moore guided the ball home past keeper Tomas Holy, who had already saved from Cameron McGeehan.

Lovell said: “They are a good side but to give a goal away in 20 seconds, whatever it was, is ridiculous.

Report: Gillingham 1 Barnsley 4

“All the planning through the week and the work that you do, you can’t legislate for that can you?

"It is ridiculous that we didn’t deal with the first ball that went out wide from the kick off and then 20 seconds later you are 1-0 down against the inform team in the league.

“It is ridiculous, it really is. You can’t do it. We have to stop doing it otherwise we will be in trouble.

“For the majority of the first half we got back into the game and had a couple of good opportunities, where perhaps we could have scored, though Tomas has made a couple of saves as well to keep us right in the game.

"We had chances the other end to equalise but we concede a minute before half-time again. They got us on the counter-attack when we had the ball and they broke and got the second goal.

"At half-time, we have a chance if we get the next goal, we started off quite bright but the third goal killed us. They are a good side but it is a very disappointing result for us.”

The Gills are awaiting news of an injury to Gabriel Zakuani, after he clashed with Barnsley striker Moore late on. Moore looked to have been knocked out and was stretchered off while Zakuani left with a plastic cast on his leg.

“Gabs is going to have an x-ray on his ankle,” Lovell revealed.

“We’re not sure what it is, at the moment, but it doesn’t look good, we will see.

“Keiffer has gone off and it looked like a nasty one. All we can do is hope that the pair of them is not as bad as it really looked.”