Gillingham’s stand-in captain Ryan Jackson is happy to let the experts decide how they handle the Covid-19 crisis within the camp.

Saturday’s game against Fleetwood went ahead despite fears that the visitors could be carrying the coronavirus infection after playing Accriongton Stanley days before, a side who had at least eight people test positive.

Gills boss Steve Evans criticised the EFL after allowing the game to go ahead without Fleetwood being tested for the virus. He said he would discuss testing his own team prior to the match at Portman Road, with chairman Paul Scally.

Jackson, meanwhile, is just keen to concentrate on the football.

“All we can do is focus on the game,” he said, looking ahead to their match against Ipswich. “We want to try and build on what we did (improving their performance on Saturday) and hopefully use the quick turnaround to our advantage.

“We just concentrate on what we have to do on the pitch.

“We get told to play when we play and all the protocols are taken care of by the sport scientists. It is not really up to us. You have to trust them, they have our best interest at heart always, we do what we need to do on the pitch and they take care of everything else.”

There was a danger of Saturday’s game being called off, with discussions taking place with the clubs and the EFL, but Jackson kept his focus, saying: “We just prepare for every game as normal and if they tell us anything else then we go from there. We just continued as normal.”

Gills lost the game 2-0 after failing to make the most of their chances but Jackson - wearing the captain’s armband while Kyle Dempsey is out injured - was pleased to have seen an improvement.

He said: “There were a lot of positives from the performance, we were very dominant first half and had some good chances and had we stuck them away it would have been a different game.

“We tried to keep our heads up (after missing the chances) and kept working hard, trying to kick on, but goals change games and we didn’t take our chances.

“The main thing was trying to get a better performance from the last two games, we didn’t take our chances but hopefully next time we will put them away.

“We just have to dust ourselves down, it is a tough period, a tough start we have had, we have to show a lot of character but I believe in the boys, we all believe in each other, we will stick together to try and get a good result.

“We are a young group, we have gelled quite quickly, but we are still working on understanding as a team, players coming in and out as well with a few injuries we have got, there are some positives and a good result next should help things.

“We relish the games against the bigger clubs, but we need to focus on ourselves, keep trying to have good performances like we did on Saturday and hopefully take our chances.”

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