Three points from the “magical” figure of fifty – Gillingham are that close and Steve Lovell wants to get there this weekend.
A run of one defeat in six games has taken Steve Lovell’s side to the verge of League One safety, although the Gills who start in twelfth as Rochdale make the long trip to Kent this weekend, are still just six points ahead of their opponents who are 22nd at kick off.
“It’s been all about consistency,” Lovell told us this week, “not just the performances but with the team too where we haven’t had to make too many changes and it does help when everybody understands what they need to be doing and that’s a big factor towards the good form that we’re currently in!”
It was good for the Gills faithful to see their heroes net four away to AFC Wimbledon and three points in a 4-2 away win last weekend and Lovell admitted, “It’s been threatening to come over the past couple of months and not quite taken them, so last weekend was good to see as we stuck our chances away and we also had another one disallowed and we hit the post a couple of time as well, but again the first half wasn’t great for us either last week and all credit to Wimbledon in coming out and having a go at us the way they did. But second half, I thought we were excellent and there was only one winner!”
“Rochdale weren’t in the best of form prior to the manager (Keith Hill) leaving and the last week have shown that others can go quickly too. But they’ve picked up some form under the new man – winning two of the last three games – so they’ll be eager to continue their run as well.”
“You deal with the pressure – I don’t think it’s actually something that you can think about as it’s a job of work at the end of the day – we had a bit of a blip before Christmas, but there’s no good frowning about it, you’ve just got to roll your sleeves up and get on with it and keep working on what you believe in and that’s all you can do and hopefully it will turn round.”
“You’ve got to have faith in your own group and in your own abilities and that you can get the maximum out of your own players. I always said through the bad results that we’ve had during the season that it’s never been for the want of trying and putting in an effort. And that effort has paid off especially in our last eight games as the qualities have come through now as well, so we’ve now just got to carry that on during the last seven games of the season and hopefully finish as high as we can!”
“It’s a team game and everyone’s got to take the plaudits when we win as well as the criticism when we don’t. And now that the team is performing quite well let’s hope we can keep it going!”
“We don’t know! If you look at the fixtures between now and the end of the season, all the bottom teams are playing each other and it’s possible still that fifty points might be enough – there’s a lot of things that can still happen between now and the end of the season and we know that we’ve still got a lot of work to do to make sure that everything is going to be OK for next year.”
“We’ll continue doing that and continue to work hard to get as many points as we can and finish as high as we can!”
“Not too many issues regarding injury. There’s only Billy (Bingham) and he should be back next week. Ricky (Holmes) is training every day and we’ll see how he is. We’re still hopeful about him playing and we’re still assessing him so that he’s going to be one hundred percent to play and that’s something we may know after the weekend.”
“We’re still hopeful – we knew it would be a gamble as he’s a quality player and hopefully for his sake and ours he’ll come through in the next few days.”
“We’ve got several players at the club whose contracts, or loans are up at the end of the season and we know that a couple of the players that I’ve brought in haven’t had the playing time they’d like to have and that’s because the boys in the team have been doing it well.”
“So, it would be great to be able to have a look at them through ninety minutes in League One, but we’ve got to get to a point where we know we’re OK and if the team keep playing as they are, we’ve no need to change it.”
“But if they don’t and lose a little bit of form or don’t do what we’d like them to do, we’ve got the players to go in and give it a go and that’s the way it’s got to be.”