ANDY HESSENTHALER made no excuses after Gillingham were beaten 4-0 by Sunderland on Saturday.

The Gills player-boss said his team simply weren’t good enough on the day - but urged them to bounce back for Wednesday’s trip to Coventry.

He said: “We were poor. We just didn’t do our jobs - it’s as simple as that. We were schoolboy. The harder we tried the worse it got. We normally get one spanking a season and hopefully that was it.

“The players need to get it out of their systems over the next few days and be ready to put it right at Coventry. In a way, it’s good to have a game so soon because it doesn’t give the players time to dwell on the defeat.”

Hessenthaler said his team had failed to defend properly against a Sunderland team that had could have scored six or seven at Priestfield.

“We could go down the training ground and play all day and our defence wouldn’t concede goals like that. It’s not like we didn’t have the players to cope with the attacks.”

The Gillingham team were booed off by the home crowd at half-time and full-time on Saturday, and Hessenthaler’s own substitution was cheered by certain sections.

And although Hessenthaler felt the crowd were free to air their opinions he felt a few Gills fans had forgotten how far the club has come.

“The fans pay their money and can say what they want. But some of them have got short memories. We’ve had some good times here and people seem to forget we’ve spent just £50,000 in four years.”

Hessenthaler’s defiance was backed up by Sunderland boss Mick McCarthy, who shot down suggestions Sunderland would like to play at Priestfield every week.

The former Republic of Ireland manager said: “It’s a hard place to come to and there’s a lot of teams who will come here this season and get a doing.

“When I spoke to my peers in the game and told them we were playing at Gillingham they all said it would be tricky. We didn’t expect to come here and win 4-0.”