Steve Lovell believes his Gillingham side are too nice and that his centre-halves were “beaten up” at Rochdale.

The Gills boss said: “How many times did their centre-forwards or midfielders get ruffled? Ours get it all the time, there are elbows and heads going in.

“It is a man’s game, they are much too nice but it is not up to us, that is down to them as individuals. They have to learn the game.

“It’s a tough situation we are in now, very tough. It is a battle.

"We will battle through it because we are too good to be in this situation. We just have to have all three units working together on a Saturday."

The Gills conceded two goals inside the opening 18 minutes, both scored by Ian Henderson, as the defence struggled to cope.

Lovell said: "Max (Ehmer) and Alex (Lacey) gave them too much time in the box.

"If you look at Tom Eaves, he never got a kick all game because of the way their centre-halves played.

"They battle all the way through and I just felt that we got beat up. Our two centre-halves got beaten up.”