Gillingham manager Neil Harris wants Rochdale repeat against Harrogate Town in League 2

Gillingham boss Neil Harris is demanding a vast improvement from his players against Harrogate.

The Gills are back in league action on Tuesday night at Priestfield, the first of three home games in a week.

They will be keen to bounce back from Saturday’s poor display at Tranmere, a game that saw Gillingham lose 3-0 and fail to have a shot on target.

“We have to be a better team than we were against Tranmere, that’s for sure,” said Harris.

“We set the standard against Rochdale for our home performances.

“One-nil flattered the opponent in that game but that’s the level of performance we need to put in and we need to try and mirror that on the road.

“We have to go one game at a time, Harrogate are coming up. It’s a League 2 match and it’s going to be a difficult challenge.

“We’ll prepare and recover the players and prepare ourselves. I’ve got to pick a team that I feel is capable of not just winning a game of football but representing the team in the correct manner.

“Against Wimbledon in the league we competed and got done by a couple of simple mistakes, which is going to happen for a period of time as we’re a new group. Rochdale was excellent and we deserved to win by three, four, five goals.”

Harrogate managed just three wins in their final 15 games last season but still finished in 19th spot in League 2, having started life in the EFL with 17th spot in their debut campaign in 2020/21.

After a 3-0 opening day win at Swindon, Harrogate lost 3-0 at Crewe and then drew 0-0 with Crawley at the weekend. They were also knocked out of the Carabao Cup, 1-0 at Stockport.

It will be the first league meeting between the two sides.