Within a week of saying he has the best squad in League Two, manager Gareth Ainsworth has questioned the commitment of his Gillingham squad after losing 4-1 at home to Grimsby Town.

The defeat at Priestfield on Saturday has seen The Gills drop to 12th in the league and fans have begun to question whether Ainsworth and his squad have what it takes to get promoted.

An indifferent start to the campaign has seen The Gills climb and drop more times than a game of snakes and ladders and Ainsworth is fed up with seeing his side capitulate.

He said after Saturday’s game: “They’ve put the ball in our goal four times and that’s not acceptable at home. I didn’t see it coming, if I’m honest. At half-time. I thought we probably edged it.”

“The second half – wow. The conditions worsened and we didn’t deal with it well. We didn’t deal with the first balls or the second balls, we got played round in midfield, our restarts were terrible, we got carved apart.”

“They are committed [but] can some of them still reach the levels of this league? I’ve got to question it because you can’t get carved apart like we did for those goals and expect to win games.”

“We’ve got three months now of these conditions and teams are going to put it on us and bully us.”

“I don’t want to be that horrible, long ball, ugly team, but we might have to get a few players in who do that because you can’t get bullied like that.”

With the transfer window closed and a number of injuries within his squad, Ainsworth’s options aren’t great and he could sign out of contract players, like he did with striker Tom Eaves, but there aren’t rich pickings out there.

Going down the loan route hasn’t always worked well for Ainsworth and Gillingham in the past.

Again, clubs will loan out players expecting them to get game time and that puts pressure on a manager to sometimes play a player that isn’t necessarily in form.

What Ainsworth really needs is the players he’s got to roll their sleeves up, get stuck in and start showing that they really want to play for Gillingham Football Club.

In the week that we lost former defender Richard Green, players would do well to look at what made him a club legend and try to replicate that.