Gillingham manager Justin Edinburgh is already looking to the future despite missing out on a League One play-off place.

The 2-1 loss at home to Millwall on Sunday afternoon compounded what has been a disappointing last few months at the club, seeing The Gills drop from the top of the table, to finishing ninth in the league.

With other results going against them on the final day of the campaign, it didn’t really matter what Gillingham did in the end, but the defeat to their local rivals reflected what has been a serious dip in form at the wrong stage of the season.

Now the season is over, Edinburgh will have to look towards 2016/17, but he couldn’t hide his disappointment having seen his side lose their last game of the season at Priestfield:

“I think we’re disappointed in terms of where we’ve ended up in. If I’m reflecting in a quick space of time, we’ve given everything and come up short of quality.

“We’ve ended with a defeat and it’s hard to take. I’d like to congratulate the players on a really good season.”

“The players have been fantastic given it their all and it caught up with us. We will gain valuable experience from playing at the top end of the table with this pressure.”

The fact that The Gills have missed out on the play-offs will almost certainly see the departure of both John Egan (out of contract) and Bradley Dack, who has been linked with a £2.5 million move to either Crystal Palace or Celtic.

Losing two of his players will be a major blow to Edinburgh as he looks to rebuild ahead of next season, but he admits he is prepared for the fact some will go:

“That’s the exciting time for a manager in the summer. The ones that learn and continue to strive and come out of it, the ones that don’t go and find their own level.”

With a number of other players out of contract this summer, Edinburgh is expected to announce in the coming days as to who will be retained and those that will be released.

In the meantime, the Gillingham manager was keen to take the positives out of a season that promised so much, but failed to deliver for the fans:

“People could say we’ve thrown it away but there have been reasons. I have a great relationship with the chairman and the fans, we had some excellent performances. There’s lots to be positive about.”

“The bottom line is we haven’t won enough football matches.”

The loss of key players at key times has surely been one of the biggest issues for a Gillingham squad that looked threadbare at times in the New Year and Edinburgh will undoubtedly look to add more strength in depth over the coming months.

Just five wins in 2016 tells a story in itself, that being over the space of 22 games, whilst failing to win any of their last eight games shows how much the side struggled in recent weeks.

Only three points out of a possible 24 in the last month or so saw The Gills go from almost guaranteed promotion to missing out on the play-offs and that will be a bitter pill to swallow for Edinburgh and all linked to Gillingham Football Club.