Gillingham midfielder Stuart O'Keefe says they need to earn the right to play in League 2

Returning Gillingham midfielder Stuart O'Keefe believes they need to earn the right to play.

Speaking on the back of a poor display in a 3-0 loss at Tranmere on Saturday, O'Keefe felt that the Gills didn't show enough fight.

"First and foremost it's not a good enough performance, it's not a Neil Harris team performance," said O'Keefe.

"We didn't compete from the first minute to the last, we didn't win enough headers, we didn't win enough second balls, we didn't win enough battles.

"When you come up north you've got to compete and fight, and earn the right to play. You can't just turn it on and off.

"The travelling fans have spent their time and money to come up on a good weekend, it's not acceptable and we're going to put it right.

"The nature of the goals was very poor but the whole game we didn't compete. They smelt blood after the first couple of minutes when they had a couple of chances and hit the post and it set the tone.

"We can't come here and expect to play as well as we have done, we have to earn the right and we didn't do that.

"It's a hard league, you have to be robust and up for the challenge and we wasn't. We got what we deserved.

"If you don't compete you are going to get turned over and that's what happened, we were overpowered and beaten up.

"It's not what we want to be, we don't want to be a soft touch, we want to be competitive and aggressive in our own right and we want to come here and challenge."

While O'Keefe was critical of Gillingham's display, he did put into context that it was only one game and it came on the back of two good displays against Rochdale the previous weekend and at AFC Wimbledon in the Carabao Cup.

"It's still early days, you can't lose sight of the fact we were excellent against