Gillingham boss Gareth Ainsworth has challenged his squad to impress him as many will be fighting for their futures in the coming weeks.

“I’ll say it now,” Ainsworth admitted, “We have too many players here! I like working with small squads for me. We will slim the squad down slightly because that is the way that I work; I believe that problems start with so many people out of the squad, never mind the team, and so I want to go quality over quantity – we work like that!”

“We stumbled on that at Wycombe, and we thought “You know what that works well!”.” 

“There is a decent Academy here as well as I would sooner have an Academy player dying to get on the bench than seven professionals sat in the stand nowhere near the bench.”

“That’s where the balance is and that’s something that we work together – we do sail close to the wind at times, but we believe that it’s really healthy for the Club.”

“That’s the culture they all buy into and everyone’s got each other’s back, everyone works for each other and that seeps out into the Community and into the fans and we all have each other’s back.”

“If we all do that on a Saturday, then the by-product is a good result and that’s what we intend to get.” 

“We would love a win at Harrogate to start with on Saturday. We will be going for the win and that’s the one thing I will say about my management style, we go for a win!”

“I don’t know how to go for a draw. We will learn plenty in the game from the players – training will show you so much, the game will show you so much more; we have a target to win the game and we have worked on them, we have assessed their strengths and weaknesses – and ours – and we will be going up there to win the game.”

“Whether that happens, the process will be in place to try and assess the whole of the squad before the end of the season and then make some tough decisions that always happens at the end of the year!” 

Across the past four seasons, Gillingham have struggled in front of goal which arguably is one of the reasons that Ainsworth is now the fifth boss at Priestfield in the Galinson’s ownership.

When the lack of goals was put to the new manager, he said, “It’s the hardest part of the game, you know! But with the right commitment, the right man management and the right sessions, I want the players to feel that they belong here – when they walk into Gillingham Football Club, they belong to the Club and that will get us better performances on the pitch without a doubt.”

“My big belief is that the culture will outdo anything and positional wise of course we want strikers who score goals, but if you put the right structure in place, you will get there!”

“I am a front foot manager; I am an attacking manager, there will be chances for our strikers because Richard puts on a lot of clinics for finishing and technique and finishing – all I can say is that we will work really hard on addressing what we feel as you’ve recognised is one of the weaker parts of our game at the moment!”

“There are definitely some goalscorers in this side – they just haven’t turned up this season and we will be looking to change that!” 

Ainsworth was asked about his Priestfield memories. “I think we came early against Martin Allen in our Wycombe tenure – Matt Mclure got a goal on Sky, that’s one of my memories,” the manager recalled before adding, “I think that there were some bad memories too – Brandon Hanlon haunted us a couple of times, but we decided to sign him for Wycombe to get him in our team so he couldn’t do that anymore!”

“And I remember as a player, I actually got applauded off – I think I was about 39 years old – I was often substituted at that age and the Gillingham fans applauded me off the pitch as a respect thing and that has always sat with me.”

“They are intelligent fans, they are football people, and I aim to make them positive about their Club again and to invest in this journey that we want to start together at Harrogate on Saturday.” 

“Without a shadow of a doubt we need the fans. People call the fans the twelfth man – it’s twelve, thirteen, fourteenth man sometimes when the Rainham End get going; it can be awesome, it really, really can be!”

“We used to turn Gillingham round deliberately when we played here so they weren’t kicking that way in the second half because it is one of those ends where you think that they are kicking to their own fans, and it can be tougher.”

“So the fans, I am hoping that they get on board with what I am trying to do – it won’t go smoothly all the time, but I have always said (to supporters), when you get behind us in the worst times, then the good times are so much better because you were there when it was tough…” 

Finally, Ainsworth confirmed that the back-room staff would remain the same adding, “I think that the Club has lost a few over the year so there will be some additions, but again the staff so far have been fantastic with us.”

“I think they are all buying in, I think they were desperate for some journey to be put in place and become a part of and so far, it’s been very smooth!” 

Picture supplied by Gillingham Football Club.