Gillingham play their final home game at Priestfield before Christmas with Head Coach Steven Clemence calling for a repeat of the performance that knocked Charlton Athletic out of the FA Cup two weeks ago as Bradford City come to Kent on Saturday. 

Speaking to KSN this week, Clemence admitted that missing out on last weekend’s long trip to Barrow may help his squad with the festive period approaching, but also admitted that the thought of a midweek trip to Cumbria in the New Year is not the best.

“I’m looking at it now as advantage before Christmas,” he admitted. “Pretty much everybody is available to go now. We’ve a couple who have not trained fully this week, but I am hopeful that they will be available.”

“Certainly, the bonus of not playing is no knocks to carry forward to this. The biggest problem is that Barrow is a long way to go and now we must go there midweek – if you go for a Saturday, you travel on a Friday, stay overnight, and play on the Saturday.”

“But to go midweek we will either go on a Monday or train early on a Tuesday and then go! We will then have to get home after the game and try to recover for the game the following weekend, it is more difficult for the players – that is the bit I do not like, but it is what it is!” 

“It seems like a long time ago that we played so well, beating Charlton here, but now we are looking at six games in twenty-one days which will see us playing a lot of football in the coming weeks.”

“The Christmas period always sorts out one or two teams when the games come thick and fast. You can move quickly up the League or you can drop a number of places as well if results go against you, so we’ve got to take care of one game at a time which is always our mentality, but we know if we can puts a decent run together in the next few weeks, it’ll stand us in good stead for the rest of the season.” 

With three of the Gills next four games at Priestfield, Clemence called on the continued vocal backing of the faithful, saying “the home fans have been fantastic getting behind us when we’ve been here, and again this weekend we’re looking forward to getting in front of them again and creating the same atmosphere that was here in the last game.” 

Clemence then was asked about his squad as the January transfer window begins to loom large and we asked him how he has gotten to know his squad.

“I’ve done my homework and I think I’ve got to know them a lot better than before I came in,” he said.

“I knew that there were a lot of good players here and having worked with them on the training ground and stood with them in the technical area watching them in games, I know that I have a decent group of players and one that I am happy to be in charge of.”

“I go to sleep OK on a Friday night because I know that they are going to turn up and give it a right good go whoever plays.”

“So that is great as a Head Coach or manager when you know you have a group who are going to do that when they cross the white line and give it everything and this group certainly will!”