Gillingham Head Coach Stephen Clemence has promised to keep fighting to the end of the season and beyond in the Club’s quest for promotion.

Speaking to KSN this week, Clemence told us ”We all have to look at ourselves, and I include myself in that, that we haven’t been good enough, especially in the run-in where we have let a lot of people down, and I can only apologise for that. It hasn’t been due to lack of effort, but I do believe that if you don’t score enough goals, you will get inconsistent results!” 

“You don’t ever give up, it’s not in my mindset and as I have said before, we will concentrate on the next game and for me as a professional sports person, you have to take care of the business coming up at the weekend and that’s what we’re going to try and do, and until it’s mathematically not possible, we will keep going.” 

“We are unbeaten since Christmas time at home, too many of those have been drawn and we should have turned some of those draws into victories and if we had, we would be comfortably in the play-off positions, but we have not done it!”

“What we do want is to send our supporters home as happy as they can be, I know that they will not be as happy as they are not where we want to be at the moment, as we have not got them into the play-offs at the moment, now that could change if we get three good results!” 

“We want to send them home for the summer with something to look forward to next season and obviously there will be some changes in the summer. January did not turn out for me exactly as I thought it would and we have to make sure we have a better window in the summer.”  

“I was very disappointed to lose at Bradford last weekend,” Clemence went on. “But it’s been the story of our season and certainly the story of my time here where we’ve created opportunities, but unfortunately we haven’t been able to take any of them.”

“It is our Achilles heel and we can’t score goals and I think that when you don’t score goals on a regular basis, you are going to get a team that’s inconsistent!” 

“What I will say is that the boys are working really hard on the training ground, we are trying to find solutions in the short term to try and help us score more goals.”

“We have been doing that for a while since we have been here, but in the long term we have got to make some changes going forward and I am sure that everyone can see that!” 

Barrow make the long trip south inside the play-off zone and Clemence is in no doubt about the scale of the challenge the Gills face on Saturday. “Pete Wild has done a fantastic job,” he told us.

“He has been there a couple of years and has recruited some excellent players and their system is very good and very difficult to play against and I think he has done a marvelous job.”

“Whoever we take on, I do believe that we will give them a difficult game, the only time that I think we really have let ourselves down is that last half hour at Harrogate and make sure that results like that never happen again.” 

With regards to the squad for the weekend, Clemence confirmed that midfielder Dom Jefferies has had his first full week of training since injuring his hamstring and will be included in the squad for Saturday, although the Head Coach would not be drawn on what part he will play.