Gills striker satisfied with point at Accrington...
Deon Burton said that the players need to be happy with a point against Accrington having played 25 minutes of the second half with just ten men.
The Gills had to settle for a 1-1 draw once Stuart Nelson had been sent off and James Beattie had converted the resulting spot kick, but the striker said the squad should be reasonably pleased having put in a good performance and taking a point back to Kent.
He said: “We have to be happy with a point after going down to ten men, especially with 20 minutes to go in bad conditions against a team who fight right to the death so at the end of the day we’ll take the point, but if we had kept 11 we definitely would have come away with all three.
“All the goals count whoever scores them as long as we pick up points and to come here on a cold winters night, sort of, and grind out a point after going down to ten men I think the boys did tremendous.”
Burton was asked if he passed on any words of advice to younger players when the side were a man down and what qualities need to be shown in order to maintain composure.
He said: “When the going gets tough you have to have a word in their ear to make sure they stay calm and keep doing the right things.
“We just have to dig in, we are top of the league and we want to stay there. You have to come to these places and grind out a result. When we went down to ten men the boys showed the determination and the spirit to make sure we didn’t come away with nothing.”
Myles Weston got the opening goal of the game which Deon praised, and he also touched on Montrose’s late effort which was kept out with good reactions from Ian Dunbavin.
He said: “It was well taken, he got on to the flick from Adam, turned and shot and it was a good goal. You have to make sure you are composed and he got his goal.
“Montrose got a shot off and I don’t think the keeper knew too much about it to be fair and it just hit him.
“On another day it goes in.”
Gillingham remain top of the league by two points and will have to wait two weeks for their next league game as they travel to Preston in the second round of the FA Cup next Saturday.