Interim boss Peter Taylor has challenged the Gills players to rise above the adversity.

A torrid start to the season has cost Ady Pennock his job as head coach and also left assistant boss Jamie Day unemployed.

The Gills are 20 in League 1 and boast just a solitary victory to their name from nine outings.

Taylor, who will pick the team for the game against Scunthorpe on Tuesday night, said: “The players appreciate (they should be doing better) and if you ask every player if they think they have done enough this season, I don’t think any of them would say they have. I would be disappointed if they said they had.

“There are certain times we have looked a decent team and other times not good enough. There have been too many times not good enough.

“The players have got to step up. I said to them, you can look at great players, fantastic players who have had dips in their career but it is how you handle that. If you can’t handle it then you aren’t going to go any higher.

“If you can’t handle where you’re playing when confidence is low then there is a fair chance you aren’t going to progress.

“It is the ones who grit their teeth and say ‘I’m going to do better, to play better, I know I am better than this and I am going to make sure I do it’.

“Yes, they need a bit of guidance, from people like myself and the coaches, but the majority of it is down to them.

“I said to the players, if you go in and give absolutely everything you have got on Tuesday night and we don’t win, I can live with that, I can put my head on the pillow no problem at all, but don’t put in a performance like Saturday (at Rochdale) because that was nowhere near it.

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“It’s up to the players to stand up and prove a few people a wrong.”

Taylor will be watching the match from the Medway Stand, communicating to coaches Steve Lovell and Mark Patterson by phone.

“If I feel I need to come down I will do that,” he said.

“There are two fellas there who know about the place and know what’s got to be done. They know the type of things I am looking for and I expect a reaction from them if we don’t get it. If I am not getting a good enough reaction then I will come down myself.”