After the amazing start to the SKYBet League Two season last weekend, Gillingham boss Mark Bonner and his squad make the long trip north to Morecambe full of confidence.  

The Gills started the season beating Carlisle United 4-1 at MEMS Priestfield last weekend, and whilst Brad Galinson watched the game from the States, Bonner admitted that he got a text from the Chairman at the final whistle despite, as the manager explained.

“I don’t really like texts after a game or messages because then if you win and get a nice one then people who send them, like the Chairman, he has to then send one when you lose and that’s awkward. I just asked that no contact is best, and we will speak when we speak.

“He still text me Sunday and it said “I have heard you do not like texts, so this is a non-text to say well done on an excellent result. I would not want to discuss an excellent performance, and I would not want to discuss what a great start to the season it was. So, congratulations and enjoy this non-text! I will not send it again!”

But that’s Brads sense of humour in a nutshell, he was happy obviously, but the Club won the first four games last year, so Saturday was “just” a win; an important one as it’s the first one and they type of win against who it was, was massive but its only 1/46 of a season, so I’m not getting too excited!”  

In midweek, the Gills bowed out of the Carabao Cup with defeat at Championship Swansea City and reflecting Bonner said, “It was a tough night, but we used the game for everything we wanted to and needed to really.

“There were several players who we could not really put on the pitch and then using a few of the other boys for limited minutes was just sensible so early in the season.

“We must try to manage a squad that has a few boys struggling with one or two bits at the moment. We must get to a position where the next couple of weeks will help us.

“That said you never want to exit any competition, you want to progress in all of them, but no now having the next round in a couple of midweeks time is great for us to be brutally honest. It’ll give us time to train, to take stock, to get people back, to build some robustness in the players which is really important,” Bonner said before adding.

“People will like my honesty until they don’t like it as it was the competition that mattered the least to me this season to be truthful. It is really important for some of the guys to have played Tuesday as one it was a learning experience because we saw what really good looks like in certain scenarios against a team that we will very rarely play against that kind of style. It got minutes for a lot of boys that needed them or managed some minutes for some of the others.” 

The Gills travel to the Lancashire coast this weekend and Bonner admitted some will not be making the trip.

“We’ll probably have a few missing at the weekend,” he admitted. “We’re checking on a few – Conor (Masterson) has been struggling with his Achilles; Tim Dieng has been out running but we’re not sure about his hamstring, we won’t be taking big risks this early in the season; Aaron Rowe felt a hamstring tight after his 45 minutes at Swansea and as the longer journeys don’t help that other than the long term boys, we’re good to go.

“We will be potentially a couple light in the squad, but we will wait and see how it all plays out. Then in the next week, Ethan Coleman is pushing on, Josh Andrews is pushing on Elliott Nevitt too. If Tim does not make this weekend, it will be very soon as it will with Conor.

“We are not far away from a real big set of players to choose from. But what we do not want to do is force people through this period and then count the cost for a longer period of time.”