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Defender Cheye Alexander says Gillingham owe fans a complete performance at Doncaster after disappointing second-half against Leyton Orient

Gillingham defender Cheye Alexander wants to put right their midweek wrongs this weekend.

Gills shipped two goals at Leyton Orient on Tuesday night but get a quick chance to put it right away to Doncaster in League 2 on Saturday.

Cheye Alexander says Tuesday's second-half display against Leyton Orient can be a blip. Picture: Barry Goodwin
Cheye Alexander says Tuesday's second-half display against Leyton Orient can be a blip. Picture: Barry Goodwin

It ended a seven-game unbeaten run by the Gills, but Alexander believes it’s not all doom and gloom.

“We’ve played well in the last five or six games so we need to continue what we’ve been doing [like] the first-half performance on Tuesday,” said Alexander.

“We’ve got to go to Doncaster and play the way we’ve been playing previously, and give a bit more. The first 45 minutes was the benchmark for Saturday but we can still improve on that.

“We need to recover, and we go again. It’s another game on Saturday, we have to focus on our game and implement a better performance for the full 90 minutes than we did on Tuesday.

“I don’t think it’s not going right. We’ve had a bad 45 minutes and we’ve got to rectify that on Saturday. The last six or seven games, we’ve scored in every game and played very well.

“Obviously, the gaffer is disappointed but we all are. It’s for us now to come in on Thursday and change that.

“We need to go in training, have a great session and then on Saturday go and do what we know we can do. We have to put in a performance now after that second half.”

Gills were arguably the better side in the first half against leaders Orient.

“It’s a good positive,” admitted Alexander. “We know we can do it and we need to show it more. That 45 minutes is the benchmark for what we need to do in each game. We’re levels about that and we know that.

“We’ll go in on Thursday and have a conversation about what happened. Once that conversation is finished, we’ll go to training and prepare for Saturday.

“We’re going to keep working hard and things will go in the right direction. We know we need to put some wins and points on the board but we will do that.”

Reflecting on the Orient reverse, the 27-year-old former AFC Wimbledon defender admitted they conceded two poor goals.

“First half we played very well, we matched them throughout,” he said. “In the second half we didn’t do the same thing.

“We conceded two very poor goals and you know when you come to a place like this you can’t be conceding easy goals that should never happen, we can’t have that.

“The first 45 minutes we were very good but you’ve got to do it for the full 90 minutes and we never did that.

"The second half was very poor, it wasn’t just the goals, the whole 45 minutes was nowhere near the first half.

“We’ve got a great fanbase. But we can’t be giving our fans a performance like that second half, it’s not acceptable.

“I’m not too sure what it was, when we watch it back we’ll see what the difference was but overall it just wasn’t good enough.

“We know we have to keep clean sheets, no matter what. But to concede two goals like that just puts you on the back foot and it was an uphill battle from there.

“No matter what game you play in if you make mistakes, you’re always going to be on the back foot. If we keep a clean sheet here, it’s a different conversation to be had.”

Alexander was used at left-back against Orient but has also operated at right-back this season.

He’s not fussed which side of the defence he lines up on, as long as he keeps his place in the starting XI.

“Right or left, I just want to be in the team and give them what I can and hopefully influence the game to get a result,” he noted.

“We’ve got a few senior players [in the squad] and that will benefit the younger players. We’ve got a great team spirit and we’ll rectify it on Saturday.”

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