Manager Neil Harris pulled no punches as he saw his side relegated to League Two at home to Rotherham United on Saturday.

Losing 2-0 at Priestfield meant The Gills dropped to the fourth tier of English football on goal difference as Fleetwood Town stayed up despite losing 4-2 at Bolton Wanderers.

After the full-time whistle and the dust had settled, Harris spoke of his disappointment and frustration that the side just hadn’t lived up to expectations:

“Ultimately, I’m the manager of this club so I take responsibility for letting the fans down this season. However, the standards, the professionalism, the recruitments haven’t been good enough and we’ve paid the price.”

“When I walked in we had the smallest budget in the division and normally that means you’ll end up bottom of the league. I knew the challenge when I walked in.”

“We tried to compete with Rotherham today but ultimately, they’ve got better players and a better squad.”

“We’ve scored 13 goals at home this season. That’s a disgrace for any football club. I’ve wanted to play a back four since I came in here but I can’t because we just concede goals.””

“I’ve got seven players under contract. Not all of those seven will be here under me next season. The players haven’t been good enough.”

“You can always blame past regimes, the fact we haven’t got this or that, but they have to take responsibility.”

A lot of ire was directed at chairman Paul Scally both during and after the game with a plane carrying a banner that read: “WIN LOSE OR DRAW – SCALLY OUT”

Having now worked with Scally for the past three months, Harris has had enough time to see the criticism first hand, but felt the chairman would do everything he could to get the club back up at the first attempt:

“The chairman is a really good man and he’s put a lot of money into this football club over the last 25 years, and he’ll continue to do that next year. It’s fine for people to say we’d like Paul to leave and somebody else to come in, but there has to be people willing to come in to support Paul and if not he’ll just run the football club the best way he can.”

“He won’t threaten the football club, he won’t take huge debt and I support him on that. I don’t want the club to take huge debt. I care about the club, if I didn’t care about the club I’d just do what other managers do – get the investors to go and borrow millions, leave and see it go pear-shaped.”

“The chairman wants the support, he’s a Gillingham fan and we have to find a plan over the coming weeks to recruit the right characters, right players, to drive the standards of the whole football club to a better level than they are today.”

“If the football club doesn’t take the steps I want it to take, then we won’t be successful next year. So that’s the challenge to the football club, I’m all in as you can tell, I enjoy it here, I think I’ve galvanised the football club and brought the terraces closer to the pitch.”

Harris did however confirm that he had to buy his own tactics board when he arrived at Gillingham, something the club should be disappointed about.

The future of the club is well and truly in his hands and there is a real sense of optimism that Harris, if supported, will be able to get Gillingham promoted next season. If he doesn’t for whatever reason, the dissenting voices may get ever louder.

Picture supplied by Gillingham Football Club.