Gillingham manager Steve Evans couldn’t fault his players’ efforts against Accrington but was once again left frustrated at their finishing.

A week ago he ordered extra shooting practice after failing to finish off Bolton Wanderers and on Saturday at Priestfield his team had 20 efforts at goal without being able to score in a match that ended goalless.

“You can play the tape recorder from last week,” said an exasperated Gills boss.

“The difference between last week and this week is that we defended properly when Accrington had the odd counter-attack. They have got good players, probably one of the best strikers in the league, if not the best, they are going to counter-attack but we have had total dominance and we can count seven or eight, even nine chances where we should score, but we didn’t.

“It is hard to take but we have to keep working hard and taking the positives. The performance at Bolton was very good, we conceded late, but this performance was a step up from that against a good Accrington side who two weeks ago went to Charlton and won very comfortably. John (Coleman, the manager) will know his goalkeeper and an inability to take our chances has got his team a point.

“The lads are the same as me, it is frustration, they know we should win the game, if we had got one we would have got three or four, that is against a team I regard as very good and anyone playing Accrington in League 1, home or away, knows they are in for a game. We knew we were in for a game but we produced a really good performance, all bar the final product.

“I have seen some incredible misses and seen some fantastic and very fortunate goalkeeping when he is lying on the floor and it has hit him. From that point of view it is frustration but we will go again. The hardcore of the group here is very good and we will win games, there is no issue with that.

“It is hard to take. We are looking at teams who we are absolutely dominating and not beating, particularly the last few weeks when our performances have gone up a level.

“We couldn’t fault the players other than taking the chances. I said to them, ‘you have given us everything'. They can be proud of the performance at Bolton where we conceded in the 92nd minute to make it a bad day for some people but we should’ve scored five or six. We should have done that against Accrington but we didn’t get one.

“Had we got one it would have been three or four but credit to the Accrington boys, they give their manager everything, the goalkeeper was inspired. They block it on the line, dive in, and that is why John Coleman in my opinion is very underrated in football, he does a brilliant job, he signs players like us that give everything and he is like us, his resources are limited, but he finds a way.”

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