Gillingham head coach Stephen Clemence accepts promotion chances have gone this season as chairman Brad Galinson says the club “need change”

Head coach Stephen Clemence remains confident he can bring success to Gillingham after accepting their promotion challenge is unlikely to succeed this season.

The club’s minimum aim was a top-seven spot this season, with a shot at the play-offs should they fail to gain a top-three automatic promotion place. Gillingham, however, start the weekend scrapping it out with a bunch of also-rans in mid-table.

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One point over Easter was followed up by a 1-0 defeat at Bradford on Saturday to leave the Gills realistically out of contention for a play-off place. Results on Tuesday night saw the Gills drop to 13th place in League 2.

It’s a disappointing way to head into the final three fixtures, from a season that promised so much, leading the division in the opening weeks and making headway despite the lack of goals.

Clemence took over in November, a month after the surprise sacking of Neil Harris, and has had the team back in the play-off positions on several occasions but has seen a lack of consistency and a continued lack of goals scupper their hopes.

Ahead of a home match with Barrow this Saturday, he said: “It is frustrating but I will keep fighting hard and keep working with the boys to make them better.

“If we don’t get better then we will always be a team where we are now, in the middle of the table, because you have to take games away from people and we haven’t done that enough.

“We should have scored (on Saturday), we should have taken the game away from Bradford, but we were unable to do it.

“We have had plenty of opportunities ourselves to get in there and we haven’t been able to capitalise. The table doesn’t lie at the end of the day, you finish where you deserve to finish.