Barnet 6 Gillingham 2: Gills boss Gareth Ainsworth reacts to an “embarrassing” League Two defeat at The Hive but says he wants to fight on and turn the club around

Gillingham manager Gareth Ainsworth was embarrassed by his team’s performance on Saturday but is determined to fight on.

The Gills boss is nearing the end of his first full season in charge, and he can’t wait for the campaign to end so he can make changes to the squad. His current players aren’t up to the job and were thumped 6-2 at Barnet on another afternoon to forget.

Report: Barnet 6 Gillingham 2

Barnet tore into the Gills right from the off, 1-0 up after six minutes and straight back in front to cancel out a goal from teenage debutant Sullivan Booth.

Even the away fans ended up clapping off Barnet striker Callum Stead - a one-time target for the Gills - after he smashed in five of the six goals in the rout.

“That was a terrible away performance and I apologise to the fans who watched that,” said Ainsworth.

“It's embarrassing. You can't come away to a team who's in really good form, who we warned [the players] were decent at set-pieces, who we warned we needed to be compact against so they couldn’t play through us. It's like they did the opposite to what we were warning them about.

“That’s my worst day as Gillingham manager, that's a real tough day.

“That was a poor one, a real poor one. The irony is, if we defend set-pieces better, which I've gone on and on about, it's a 3-2 [defeat] and we go away going, ‘You know what, Barnet have had a hell of a season’.

“They're in good form. They've got all their players fit. Great, but we just concede too easily. That was a bad day.”

The Gills were 5-1 down at the break and Ainsworth made a triple change. Stead added his fifth and Barnet’s sixth before Josh Andrews scored a consolation with seconds remaining.

Ainsworth said: “Even though we levelled the second half, we came