Gillingham kick off the SkyBET League Two season with the short trip to South West London to face AFC Wimbledon, with the man who came agonisingly close to achieving mission impossible in April, is relishing the “Big Kick Off.”
Neil Harris has spent the summer rebuilding his squad and when he spoke to KSN this week couldn’t wait for the new campaign to start. “Because of the challenges, its probably one of the most enjoyable preseasons I’ve had as a player or a manage,” Harris confessed.
“Every day has been different – recruitment has been “fun” I have to say, but what hasn’t changed is the attitude and mindset of the lads to get better and improve, and that’s all we can ask. We’ve had to be adaptable as a group daily and we’re in a really good place physically – game plan wise at Wimbledon, we’re set, we’re good. The six games we’ve had in preseason have been class, exactly what we needed and better than I could have ever imagined and so we really are in a very good place.”
“We’re hopefully signing a goalkeeper for the weekend that will be finalised on Friday morning for a loan until January. We’re still looking at a striker which is key.
“What doesn’t change in my times is wanting to have a defensive mindset in the thought process that we want clean sheet mentality, difficult to break down and hard to beat, but then we’ve got to have more of the ball this year and must be better in the final third… that doesn’t mean that we’re going to make three thousand passes to score a goal.”
“I felt limited last year, and I have to be honest I still do today,” admitted the Gills boss, “and the importance of getting a striker over the line is key to the football club but then we will still want to do at least one more attacking player as well.”
“Saturday will be great for our incredible following and it will be between two new sides. I was here for four months last season, but it wasn’t really my side – inherited players and I was please with a lot them. But this feels like a bit of a fresh start but with Jonnie Jackson going in at Wimbledon, they’ve signed a lot of players as well.”
“We’ve got to make sure we’re as consistent as we can be from day one and that starts Saturday at 3:00pm…”
“I’m not going to put pressure on the players or the Football Club by saying we’re going to go straight back up. I’ll put pressure on my own shoulders as I want my team to compete – I seen what other teams are paying and players that they’ve been able to sign – looking on with envy a little bit – but I’m really pleased with the business that we’ve done as a Football Club at the moment – we want to be competitive and our aim has to be to finish top seven… it has to be! We know each week will provide a different challenge for us and as always, we must be as prepared for each game as we can be.”
Harris then confirmed that midfielder Alex MacDonald may be included on the expanded bench as he continues to recover from the injury that finished his season so prematurely early last season, whilst Stuart O’Keefe is close to returning to the squad although Harris admitted opening day might just come a few days early.
Images courtesy of Gillingham FC