Sitting only three points from safety under new manager Neil Harris, Gillingham head to Doncaster Rovers on Saturday believing they could stay in League One.
The Gills travel to Yorkshire for the massive six-pointer in their fight against relegation on Saturday in the knowledge that they could possibly have one foot back in League One after seemingly having lost all hope of survival.
Neil Harris takes his side north on the back of last weekend’s 3-0 defeat to Bolton Wanderers; the most disappointing 90 minutes on the pitch since the new boss took over.
“The effort was there, but it’s how we channel the effort,” the Gills boss told KSN as he tried to put his finger on what went wrong.
“We played against a really good football team, and we knew exactly how they were going to play. We had a game plan that we delivered on Thursday and Friday to the players.”
“But on Saturday, for the first ten, fifteen minutes we didn’t deliver it and all that does is give confidence and belief to the opponents and detract away from what we want to do and ultimately it forced us to change tactics!”
“It’s the first time we’ve got it wrong on the pitch since I’ve been here and I’m disappointed with the players for that as there’s no excuses – sometimes it becomes about players not doing their jobs; it’s not because they’ve not run, it was because they’ve run to press the wrong player, they’ve run the wrong direction or stood in the wrong position from a restart.”
“They’re the things that I put a lot of time and effort in – looking at games and preparing players – and there should be no excuse for getting it wrong. If you get it wrong once, then fine, but you don’t get it wrong again, again and again!”
“That was my frustration and disappointment – I praised the players after the Lincoln game for following directions, but we got it wrong on Saturday, the players got it wrong!”
“After the game I had a few choice words with some of the players, but I have to admit that some of the players who have played really well before the weekend, didn’t have a good game on Saturday.”
“And to get four or five who don’t play to their standards, we are going to struggle as a group because other teams have good players.”
“The players know me well enough by now that I have my say, we’ll review it, I’ll give them home truths, but its in the right manner. We dealt with it Monday morning and to a man the players to a man were class “we got it wrong, and we won’t get it wrong next week!””
“They went onto the training pitch at 11.00am Monday morning, Saturday not completely forgotten being used to spur things on, but we have to look at and focus on the next game which is Saturday at Doncaster.”
“All the players have to do is to respond to the Bolton defeat… sounds simple, doesn’t it?”
Harris and his side travel in the knowledge that if they can complete the double over Donnie, Gillingham could end the weekend level on points with the side in 20th place and potential safety – a fact that isn’t lost on the manager.
“When I walked in the gap to safety was ten points – today it’s three!” he said, “what more do the players need beyond the belief of that that they can do it…”
“Realistically I didn’t think we’d be this close after just five weeks,” the Gills boss went on. “To be completely honest, I came in with the mindset that I can’t control what happens in six, eight, ten games time – all I can control is the next day’s training and our next fixture.”
“We’ve taken that mindset all the time and whilst I know it’s a big week ahead of us, I can’t start thinking about Charlton or Sheffield Wednesday because we’re playing Donnie on Saturday, and all I want to do is win that game!”
“Ultimately, I want to win the game against Doncaster and that’s all where my focus is.”
“I did keep an eye on the results on Tuesday night – I was watching a game on the “red button” whilst my children were keeping me up to date on the other scores.”
“I had the TV on, the laptop on, the alerts on the phone and the children keeping me up to date as I couldn’t get to a game – I can’t control other results, but I can with the team that I pick and the tactics I pick and how the team does on the pitch.”
“And if we win on Saturday and other teams don’t, then great, but if we don’t win and others do, there’s nothing I can do about it until we go to Charlton on Tuesday.”