Manager Neil Harris knows he and the team have work to do to get the Gillingham fans back onside.

The Gillingham manager hopes a busy January transfer window will provide him with the players he hopes will turn the club’s fortunes around. The spending has already started and he expects it to continue.

It’s been a tough 11 months in charge for Harris, with relegation last season and sitting bottom of the pile in League 2 after 22 games this term. Fans have been patient for a long while with the team, and manager, but in recent games they’ve been vocal with their discontent.

“We have to accept the criticism, because we are bottom of the football league,” said the Gills boss.

“Do I like it? No. I don’t like it because the players represent me, when they (the fans) are singing ‘they are not fit to wear the shirt’ I don’t like it, I can’t do anything about it, I won’t say if I think it is right or wrong or not because I am a football fan myself, but we have to accept we are where we are.

“What you can only do is put it right and try and make them proud again and try and believe in you.

“First 30 minutes (at Sutton) they got behind us because we were the better team, first 44 minutes of the second half they got behind us because we were the better team.

“I have always said finding that connection between the terraces and the pitch is one of the hardest things in football, we had it for the first six months in charge but we haven’t got it now because we aren’t winning games of football.

“How do you get bums off seats? Sometimes they come with you and sometimes you have to get them with you, against Colchester we didn’t get them with us because we didn’t play well enough and we didn’t create enough chances.

“What we have done too many times recently is that we have given poor, sloppy, horrific first goals away and the one (at Sutton) was the same, right infront of our fans and we didn’t respond correctly afterwards.

"They are right, they have seen the goal go in and if Phill (the press officer) had been playing we wouldn’t have conceded a goal like that because he would have been braver, aggressive, that is what the fans see, they want to see their players head the ball and defend, and at the other end they want to see people take a risk. We took risks, we had chances, we just didn’t score, the other end we gave away a really poor goal for the first one and so yes, I accept the criticism.”