Boss Steve Lovell hails ‘magnificent’ Gills

Steve Lovell described the performance of his Gillingham team as “magnificent” after goals from Elliott List and Callum Reilly secured three precious points.

But the manager admitted his team had made life difficult for themselves after Reilly was sent off for a lunging 70th-minute challenge on Liam Sercombe.

Sercombe’s 87th-minute goal from a 30-yard free-kick set up a tense finale and the same Rovers player hit a post during eight minutes of stoppage time.

Gills boss Lovell said: “We don’t do things the easy way. The game was a bit too entertaining in the end for my liking!

“Overall, the lads were magnificent. The first-half performance was just how we want to play and when we had to dig in after the sending-off the players showed a lot of character.

“I haven’t seen the red-card incident again but Callum did appear to leave the ground as he went in for the ball so we may have no complaints.

“We scored two very good goals and only conceded from a set-piece, with what was a brilliantly-struck free-kick.

“It’s a huge win for us going into the break for the FA Cup and I think we deserved it for the way we played in the first 45 minutes.

“We passed the ball really well and produced some great football. At the end we needed a bit of luck, but we had earned it.”

Rovers boss Darrell Clarke was disappointed that Gillingham’s goals from List after eight minutes and Reilly in the 59th were shots from distance he felt should have been saved.

The first beat Jack Bonham, who suffered a back spasm early in the second half and had been replaced by Adam Smith by the time Reilly made it 2-0.

“I’m not happy with either of my goalkeepers. They were both soft goals to concede,” said Clarke.

“But the story of our season is that we can’t put the ball in the net. We had so many chances again and I’m fed up with saying the same things.

“I’m as frustrated as I have been since taking charge here. Our fans deserve so much better. They cheered the players off at the end, even though we had lost.

“They can see the lads are giving everything but we lack quality and are not getting enough from our forward players. I take responsibility for that because I signed them.

“There will be no days off for the players while we are in the relegation zone. And I will be talking to the powers that be about their views on how we take the club forward.”