There is no easy way to dress up this one, Russell Martin wanted to find out some answers and made 11 changes to his team from Friday night, perhaps it might have worked, but then he tinkered.
We expected to see changes for this game, we expected to see a lot of them, but what we got was a set of players all with differing objectives and some out of position, Russell Martin seems to have wanted to ask some questions about certain players, he certainly got the answers.
The starting line up saw three players who probably know there time is up at Saints, they know they are not comfortable playing the style of football under Russell Martin, they know they are second even third choice at present and perhaps know they aren't going to get a better offer elsewhere so are stuck.
Alex McCarthy, James Bree, Lyanco & Romain Perraud fell into this category, perhaps a little harsh on the Frenchman Perraud, but the fact is he wasn't even given a chance to shine in his normal position, he was thrown in at centre back alongside Lyanco whilst Jayden Meghoma who only turned 17 in June was given his debut at left back.
In the centre of midfield Stuart Armstrong partnered the Shea Charles who was also making his competitive debut for the club and out wide we had Amo Ameya whose only other first team game was a few minutes against Liverpool in the final game of last season and Moussa Djenepo who is very much a fringe player, up front we had Sekou Mara & Che Adams.
Some would say there was some experience out there, but truth is there were no leaders and four of those experienced player's are not comfortable with the formation.
A recipe for disaster from the start, if we are going to experiment a bit you have a strong spine, that means two central defenders who can control the game, keep things steady, what we had was a player who is a left back and only a left back and the volatile Lyanco.
But truth was for most of the first half we were in control, we passed the ball and kept possession and created chances, but when Gillingham got the ball they came at us hard and fast and drove at our spine.
The first goal should never have happened, James Bree tried to keep a ball in play when really he had noting on and just put it in the path of their player, who drove forward and crossed the ball for Nadesan to fire home after 12 minutes.
After that McCarthy was a virtual spectator for much of the half, although too often when they did get forward we didn't have a clue who was supposed to be marking who and we were lucky to see a second goal ruled out.
Half time did not see optimism in the Saints end, however there was a feeling that with a timely substitution or two we could get back in the game, but the two changes were strange, off came Stuart Armstrong for Joe Aribo and on came Kamari Doyle another youngster turning 18 a week earlier to add to his 6 minute appearance at Brighton last season.
We had taken off a striker and brought on two midfielders, we had even less experience and leadership on the pitch.
I understand Martin's reasoning on why he took both Armstrong & Mara off, but not the replacements.
The Gills caught us before we had regrouped and within 6 minutes they had doubled their lead, yet another poorly defended goal.
Alcaraz for Perraud on the hour mark looked to give us a cutting edge, but within minutes Gillingham were 3-0 up again poor defending that saw the unmarked McKenzie fire home his second.
A nice goal from Alacaraz on 89 minutes gave a glimmer of hope, but 7 minutes of injury time was never going to be enough.
So a disaster of an evening, but I don't think Russell Martin will see it that way, he will be pragmatic, we were never going to win this competition, so he wanted some questions answered and winning was not the priority, this was almost another pre season game, he wanted to see who could play his possession football game and who couldn't, he wanted to find out how the youngster performed in a competitive game .
From this perspective he got answers, most of the youngsters acquitted themselves well, but were let down by the experienced players and a back four and keeper who were atrocious.
To put in perspective we had 72% possession, we had 20 shots with 5 on target, the home side only had 5 attempts all night, 4 of them were on target and 3 went in, all of those attempts had one thing in common, they had men unmarked.
I have no gripe with the possession game, but it needs to be driven from the back, you have to have defenders who can defend and who can organise and mark, this was not the case last night.
But congratulations to Gillingham & their fans, they showed a lot of passion and took their chances when they came, I have given a lot of insight into why I thought we lost the match, but there were two teams out there and they still had to win it.
In truth as a fan i an unhappy for us to go out of the League Cup, it offers a nice run and a chance of glory, well at least whilst we were a Premier League club, but this season it is different, we were never going to win it, so it was a distraction, Russell Martin's job is to get up challenging for promotion, he doesn't need to have a 350 mile round trip to say Mansfield to get in the way.
I don't think the manager and his coaching staff are too disappointed about the result.
What he will be disappointed about is the manner of the defeat, he will have had a lot of questions answered about senior players, I would be surprised to see McCarthy, Perraud, Lyanco & Bree play much part this season, all have seen signings in the summer in their positions, and they know that there are more coming in, this was last chance saloon for them and their body language told you that, Lyanco gave 100%, no one can accuse him otherwise, but he knows his days are numbered.
So do I think this game is any pointed to how we will do in the Championship going forward, the answer is no, so I am not going to spend too much time worrying about it, none of the starting line up in this game were in the starting line up at Sheffield Wednesday and for that matter, perhaps Che Adams aside will start against Norwich City.
So there is no point as seeing this as anything other than a training game, I have made several points about Russell Martin's starting line up, I don't think this was a blunder by the manager, he knew exactly what he was doing, he wasn't bothered about this result, he is more bothered about Saturday.
Of the 16 players who played in this match, perhaps 6 have any chance of getting on the pitch on Saturday and as I said perhaps only Adams in the starting line up.
So the focus is on Saturday now, all that matters is the next game and not the last, for Russell Martin, Norwich was always the focus, if Saints are promoted no one will remember or care about a cold windswept night in Kent.