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Harris hoping to maintain Gills form
Harris hoping to maintain Gills form

Gillingham are back on the road this weekend as they head to the Midlands to face a Walsall side who haven’t won in twelve games with boss Neil Harris hoping for another positive result.

But Neil Harris isn’t getting carried away as the Saddlers have drawn nine of those twelve games and Harris knows they will provide another real test for his ever improving side who will be looking for a fourth clean sheet in a row at the Bescott Stadium!

The Gills boss told us this week, “We’re in a great mindset for the weekend as the lads are in good form collectively – there’s a great spirit about the place and generally I think that teams will look at playing us “they’re on good form and a tough nut to crack.””

“What do I think about Walsall? They’ve drawn a lot of games (nine in their last twelve) and have fallen away from a promotion push but they have some good players at this level.”

“I’ve just got to pick my shape and my team and make sure that the players are ready. Subconsciously for the players there will be a massive boost for us given where we’re at, at the moment…”

“We want another clean sheet as if you don’t concede you don’t lose games, but even though the three centre halves are playing well, it’s all about getting the balance and that was missing in our last away game at Stockport as I didn’t get the balance – have the clean sheet mentality, but also having the goal threat over the ninety minutes…”

“We want to win games of football as we’re one of the form teams in the division – every game has its’ own challenges, so how we approach this one you’ll have to wait until three o’clock Saturday afternoon.”

“The pressure on us is to keep the standards which is different to when you’re bottom of the League by seven points! We still have to amass more points – only takes a couple of teams below us to win back to back games and we’ll be right back in the mix again.”

“We’ve got to keep getting points to move away from the danger zone. That’s the pressure that we’re under now. The task to the players is to keep delivering the standard that we’re now setting – do not step off those standards!”

“That won’t be accepted and I’ve made that very clear this week in training.”

“You have to build from the back onwards in a successful team so in the short term you have to make sure that you get the structure of the team right without the ball.”

“You then get the formation and personnel right and then add the gold-dust, the goals! Then you hope it all comes together at the same time, which it has pretty much for us over the last twelve games – touch wood,” the Gills boss added.

“There will be spell when it doesn’t go our way too – we had three games recently when we didn’t score, but that doesn’t concern me given the quality of player that we’ve now got in the building, if we don’t score for a game or two.”

“My teams previously have never struggled to score goals – strikers have never struggled to score goals…”

“I’ve had to be very patient since coming to the Football Club to wait for the quality of player to score goals regularly, but now moving forward we will score.”

“It’s not about “parking the bus” in every game as I made clear at the recent fans forum, but in games between now and the end of the season, to amass points, if that’s what we have to do, then we will because that’s right for us to do.”

“Moving forward as a Football Club I want to play on the front foot and I want to be aggressive, I want to be attack minded, but we must keep the door shut at the other end! And that is what good teams do!”

Harris confirmed that both Lewis Page and Robbie McKenzie have both “trained on the grass” this week so are in the squad for the weekend, but there’s less good news about Scott Kashkett who’s suffered a setback with his groin in his recovery from injury and Harris admitted that it’s unlikely to see him for at least seven to ten days.


 
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