Gillingham manager Martin Allen has told KSN how he was pleased with his sides’ performance as they beat Ebbsfleet United 3-2 on Saturday.

Two goals from Danny Kedwell and one from Ben Strevens saw Gillingham edge out the Fleet, despite two excellent goals from Moses Ashikodi.

Saturday’s win keeps Gillingham’s unbeaten run under Allen going and the Gillingham manager told KSN at the full-time whistle how he was happy with how the side had played, but lessons needed to be learnt from how the home side battled back:

He said: “I thought in the first half we were absolutely outstanding – it was a top quality first half performance. We started the second half a little bit slower, we failed to match the tempo that we played at in the first half with our quick passing.

“We managed to get it back again which is very good and testament to the players’ character and strength of mind that they can get it back and I thought the second half was a test.

“The game should have been well out the way, but they changed their system in the second half and that gave us a few problems so it’s up to us now to learn how to adapt when other teams do, and they will change, their systems to play against us because we are good.

“They will have to adapt to that and we will gave to be tactically aware ourselves but we are all learning because we are only just starting together.

“It was our first 90 minutes so perhaps you could expect it to be a little fatigued, but overall very good.”

Allen is trying to introduce a new way of playing for Gillingham with a lot more football played in neat triangles and keeping the ball on the deck and the manager told KSN how he was happy with the way his side are creating chances with the full-backs able to bomb on:

He said: “The players have been very receptive to what we are trying to achieve and I thought the first half was good to watch with good penetration in the right areas – we should have had more goals.”

Saturday also saw the majority of the starting eleven given their first ninety minutes of pre-season and Allen was pleased that his side are starting to gain the fitness levels needed for the forthcoming season:

“That’s their first 90 today – we made a couple of changes but we wanted to win the game and keep in the habit. The players that didn’t play will play at Dover so we will have a new team to play there on Tuesday and they will get 90 minutes, so it’s work in progress.

“Everybody in the squad will know how we want them to play – the same formation and the same style and a lot of the players who played today will be down there watching with a lot of the youth team being subs.”

“Everybody will stay together in the group for these games and we are coming along nicely.”