“We don't want to be a streaky team, like I said the other night. You can't be a team that in the first month of the season, manager-of-the-month, which basically means the team's been really successful.

“Nominated for manager-of-the-month in month two (September), which means you've had a really good month, and then monster-of-the-month in the third and has to leave the club because the team's hopeless all of a sudden!

“None of those are true, and the run of results is stupid, but we have to find some middle ground and work out getting a positive result and then building from there.”

The Gills have won as many as they’ve lost, with six wins, one draw and six defeats in their 13 league games but ended a run of three straight victories with that flurry of defeats this month.

Bonner said: “Usually the noise gets loudest around the team, and outside the team, and even in the team when you are doing really, really well or really badly in terms of runs of results, and so managing that is really important.

“Part of when we were doing really well in results was consistently saying to people ‘the level we're playing at will not allow us to stay at the level we're at’. I've said that loads to the team and it was just true. We were probably outperforming ourselves a bit and got a few points that we might not have done.

“In some of the games that we played recently it's the same sort of story.

“There's actually quite a bit in there that's alright and we're not far away from getting results, and then there's bits in there that need calling out as hopeless, and we've got to sort that out and solve.

“There's loads of reasons for it, so it's trying to work those bits out, keep people calm enough that it isn't chaos but focused enough that it's serious and this can't continue.

“It's trying to find that balance all the time and everyone's in a slightly different place in the team. But we've had a couple of really good meetings. I think the lads are focused. I think they're with us. I think they're desperate to do well and one or two things have really gone against us in a few games.

“They're probably the things that went for us when we were going well. We have to level off a little bit and be a bit more of a consistent team because streaky teams are horrible teams to be part of.”