Gillingham Manager Justin Edinburgh was devastated after his side fell to a 2-3 defeat against Shrewsbury Town at MEMS Priestfield Stadium despite dominating the encounter. The result saw Gills fall outside the top six for the first time this season.
Despite a screamer from Cody McDonald, and a superb striker from Jake Hessenthaler, goals from Sullay Kalkai, Andy Mangan and Jean-Louis Akpa Akpro denied the home side a swift return to the playoff positions.
Edinburgh thought that the performance and effort were there but the inexperience of his Gillingham team cost them, commenting “it’s probably the best we’ve played for ten games or so and unfortunately we didn’t do what we knew we had to do today.
“It’s the first time we’ve scored two goals for I don’t know how many games and we created more chances.”
Justin tried to put into words how the defeat felt, saying “to sum it up we’re devastated”, adding “it’s been taken out of our hands now”.
The Gaffer felt that the inexperience of his squad may have caught up with them describing how “we’ve got three players in our team who have ever been in this position before: Stuart Nelson, Cody McDonald and Josh Wright. It has caught up with us.
“At times we’ve overloaded - that’s nothing other than a bit of nous and know-how.”
However, Edinburgh was quick to stress the pain the Gills players were feeling and their determination to get back into the top six.
“People are hurting, and we have to take responsibility: we had the game today, we should have won, and we didn’t.
“The pendulum’s swung and it’s not us who are trying to hold onto that position”
Finally the Gills manager looked ahead to Burton, saying that “we all have to seriously lick our wounds over the weekend”, commenting “the pendulum’s swung and it’s not us who are trying to hold onto that position.
“We’ve got to go to Burton and win a football game”, Edinburgh concluded.