Gillingham coach Ian Cox hopes lessons will be learned from Tuesday’s defeat to Tottenham.

The young guns from Tottenham were too good for the Gills in the Checkatrade Trophy clash, running out 4-0 winners at The Valley.

“We’re disappointed with the result,” said Cox.

Report: Gillingham 0 Tottenham u21s 4

“I thought the boys acquitted themselves as well as they could against a team who I thought were very talented.

“We have seen the future of Tottenham there. From the off they set a precedent, they got the ball moving and you could see they were comfortable with it, from the back to the front, and they took their chances.

“It wasn’t through the lack of effort but we came up against a very talented young team.”

Tottenham lacked experience, none of their players had appeared in the Football League, but they knew how to play.

Cox said: “We are not going to get this standard of football in League 1, that is something we said to the boys inside, it’s a learning curve for us.

“We have come up against individuals who got the ball down, moved it quickly, one or two touches and there were some lessons for all of us to be learned with the way they played their football.”

A first half of few clear-cut chances looked to be finishing goalless before Spurs struck a minute from the interval.

Cox added: “We wanted to go in at the break and regroup and giving the goal away was disappointing because we had to rejig the game plan.”

The Gills showed a determination to battle back at the start of the second half but Spurs’ second goal, just before the hour, was a major blow.

Cox said: “For the first 10 minutes we did get after them and we had more of a controlled spell in the game. We got the ball down and we moved it well, we weren’t standing off them and we matched them up a bit more, more so than we did in the first half, but goals change games.

“They got the goals at the right time, they got their tails up and we got a little despondent.”