CLEMENCE IS 'PROUD' BUT BLADES CUT GILLS APART

Visiting Osula and McAtee double up

- Oliver Sage

STEPHEN Clemence was proud of his Gillingham players, despite going down to Premier League bottom side Sheffield United.

Spo Doubles from William Osula and James McAtee saw the Blades into the fourth round at the expense of their League Two opponents. But the Gills gave as good as they got for large parts and Clemence took heart from the performance.

"I'm proud of the way they applied themselves and proud of the way they tried to make an impact on the game," said the Priestfield chief.

"At times we had to weather the storm, but when we did have the ball we tried to be positive. It's hard to work our patterns against a Premier League side, but on another day we'd have got a couple of goals." League Two's least potent attack came close to opening the scoring hen Conor a Masterson beat his man and saw a goal-bound shot blocked.

Oli Hawkins wasted brilliant chance for the Gills when he miscued a first-half header and at 2-0 down in the second half, skipper Max Ehmer's effort struck a post.

"I never felt it was a 4-0, the boys are unlucky with that," Clemence insisted. "If Max's header goes in, the place would have erupted and it would have been a really interesting end.