John Coleman insists Gillingham need a ‘mentality of scoring goals’

New Gillingham boss John Coleman knows he needs to find a way to get his side firing in the goals after his first game in charge ended with a 1-0 defeat to promotion-chasing Doncaster.

Luke Molyneux scored the only goal of the game as Grant McCann’s Rovers got back to winning ways.

The Gills have now failed to score in their last 382 minutes of football and have lost four on the bounce.

“In any walk of life there’s got to be an element that you can fail otherwise success means nothing,” said Coleman.

“We failed today because we lost. It wasn’t for the lack of trying.

“I thought we were fantastic for the first 25 minutes. I believe they feigned an injury to get a breather and get more information on because we were suffocating that.

“I’m not knocking them for that, it happens. Unfortunately we didn’t score in that period.

“The problem that we’ve got and the problem that has plagued Gillingham for two years is a lack of goals.

“For all that pressure, did we make enough chances? Probably not.

“We made a couple of good chances that we would have liked to have scored.

“Hopefully the fans stick with us and recognise the shoots of recovery that I think are there.

“Nothing gets done in one day or one game. Whatever the scoreline was I think there’s room for improvement and we’ll continue to work on that.

“I could see the ethos of how I want us to play and it mirrors sides I’ve had in the past.

“We’ve got to get that mentality of scoring goals. It’s got to come more natural than it is at the minute. That could just be a fluke goal.”

McCann praised his side’s adaptability after continuing their promotion charge.

He said: “We weren’t too sure what we would come up against with John coming in.

“We had to be adaptable. We spoke to them about different shapes and the lads were really good.

“We had to ride a bit of a storm. I completely expected that with a fresh energy among the group with John’s first game and the fans right behind them.

“I got us to change ends so they were attacking their home fans in the first half. I’ve been here before and they can really spur them on if it’s 0-0 so I thought if we could get in at 0-0 or 1-0 then we would go on to win the game and that’s how it happened.

“It was a really good goal on the break. It’s a great finish from Luke.

“It’s a really good away win. Can we be better? Of course we can. We have played way better than that and lost this season so I’m really pleased we dug in and saw the game out.”