Gillingham are back in front of the SKY TV cameras this weekend as they welcome the National League Champions Barnet to MEMS Priestfield for a lunchtime kick-off, and defender Remeao Hutton is relishing the early alarm call it would seem… 

“The differing kick off times doesn’t really cause too many issues for us,” he told us at this week’s briefing. 

“We have played the 12:30pm kick off before and everyone is on the page. It’s been put on the group chat when we should eat and the time, so it really doesn’t make too much of a difference.” 

“The Crawley game last week saw us not have the ball as much as we would have liked – we could have maybe been a bit more aggressive there, but looking back a draw was probably a fair result.”

“We had chances, they had chances, but we will have to take those chances on another day.” 

“Barnet will be similar – I think they play the same formation so basically, we are getting a second chance to be better than we were last week.”

“Hopefully they won’t have the ball as much as Crawley did and hopefully, we can impose our style a bit more and the chances we do create, we can put away!” 

“The mood in the dressing room is always good – the Gaffer comes in every day and is positive and loud and is really good with all his energy.”

“Of course, you are going to have bumps in the road over the course of a season, it’s just about keeping standards high, everyone’s mood high and no-one becomes a “victim”. There is a lot of togetherness within the squad – at the moment, we are playing a game of “Traitors” and that’s bringing everyone together a bit more!”

Hutton wouldn’t name names and insisted that he is a “Faithful!” 

Turning back to the football, “When we play five at the back, it does allow me to get forward a bit more, but I had to concentrate more on defending last weekend.”

“I have played for Crawley boss Scott Lindsey at Swindon, so I knew what to expect and they knew how I play, hopefully I will be able to get forward more this week.”

“When you play against an old manager, they know your weaknesses, and you know how they want to play and they do try to minimalise your strengths.” 

“Anyone can beat anyone in this League on their day and so, we have to be ready for them – be ready, aggressive and on the front foot and create the chances so we can be very good.”

“We focus on the next game and don’t try to get ahead of ourselves; when the season started it was to be better and improve on what we did last year.”

“The togetherness may have been missing last year in parts – everyone knows their job now, everyone that they are non-negotiable, so we have to put that into process.” 

It will be two years in January that Hutton has been at MEMS Priestfield, and he was asked about that.

He said, “This is the most that I have enjoyed my football since I have been at the Club, and I think that it’s the best that I have played in the period since the Gaffer came in.”

“I am enjoying working underneath him and you can see by just walking round the place that everything has changed – the standards have been raised and if we can keep that up until the end of the season, who knows?”

“I think that I have added a few things to my own armoury – we have all had conversations on what we need to work on, and we stay outside after training practising certain stuff – everyone’s skills are improving, and I think we are all getting better!”