Laboured, disjointed and very weak

The mind was left boggling by a performance few saw coming.

Gillingham really should have been perfect opponents for a Posh team trying to emerge from a lull in results after such a bright start to the League One campaign.

The visitors arrived at the ABAX Stadium with their third manager of the season in charge and with just one win and six goals to their name in a dozen League One matches.

The scorer of four of those goals wasn’t even present because of suspension and neither were a couple of key defenders.

To report that Gillingham still won for the first time this season away from home, and rather comfortably at that, is therefore rather worrying.

Posh fans can only hope the hour-long post-match conversation between chairman and manager was fruitful enough to inspire a better set of results.

They certainly couldn’t play much worse than this laboured, disjointed and weak effort. Gillingham played all the pretty football before the break and deservedly took the lead on 35 minutes through Lee Martin’s speculative effort.

Posh ‘keeper Jonathan Bond should probably have saved that shot, but he was solely responsible for keeping his side in touch at the interval with fine stops to thwart Josh Parker and Elliot List.

The second half was more even although Gaby Zakuani and co in the Gillingham defence were hardly tested.

Jack Marriott struck the crossbar with a terrific shot from a 25 yard set piece and the disappointing Marcus Maddison almost squeezed another free kick past giant goalkeeper Tomas Holy, but from open play Posh were hopeless with the honourable exception of Gwion Edwards.

His efforts were ruined by a lack of anticipation and aggression from those in front of him as a third straight League One loss was confirmed.