Garath McCleary has been speaking ahead of Saturday’s home SKYBet League Two game with Oldham Athletic as Gillingham look to get back to winning ways.

The winger who joined the Club earlier in the season started by recalling the away game against Saturday’s opposition, which came the week before he signed on the Priestfield dotted line. “I watched the away game at Oldham just before I signed for the Gills when Vokesy (Sam Vokes) scored the winner,” McCleary recalled and looked ahead to this weekend adding, “We know what to expect from them as every game this season has been a test, and we know that we are going to have to battle if we are going to get the points.”

“We know that it’s going to be a real battle as that is what you get from Micky Mellon (the Oldham boss) and his teams. I have also played with a couple of their boys in my career and know what to expect from them.”

“We can’t keep going along this season saying the same thing that we are frustrated not to get points. As a squad we need to take the pressure off ourselves – the Gaffer has given us the opportunity in every game has given us the platform to perform and maybe, me included, we need to be doing a little bit more! I am not saying that we aren’t working very hard every game, but we have been creating chances that we really need to be putting away again myself included I think that we have expectations that we should be doing better than we are!”

“We need to always stay level,” McCleary went on. “We can’t get too high from games and we can’t get too low either – we have to keep working hard and I think repetition in training will take good effect in games, as we need to keep going, keep pushing as much as we are and at some point are fortunes will change but I do think that we need to control games a little bit better than we have done recently.”

“The experienced players have to play a big part now – I have seen it throughout my career. Young players sometimes don’t do what they are best at because they don’t want to make a mistake, but we have players in this squad with the experience to encourage them as young players to express themselves to the best of their ability and to express themselves if they ever need a shoulder as there is support for them in the dressing room. We aren’t going through the best of runs at the moment, but we have the experience and hopefully we will have enough when they are down to change our fortunes.”

“We are one within the dressing room and if we weren’t creating chances then that would be a problem especially recently, but the chances have been coming and it is just that we as a team, me included as I said, been putting them away. When that happens, I think that you really need to look at certain things, but we have had chances and we are creating chances in games!”