Gillingham head into their Christmas campaign in good heart after coming agonisingly close to beating Cheltenham Town with boss Mark Bonner knowing that a good Christmas period will send the Gills into 2025 with great momentum.
Speaking to KSN in the last briefing session before Christmas, the manager reflected on Friday’s 2-2 draw and told us, “I thought we had some really good approach play on Friday and got into some threatening areas, creating one or two really good moments.”
“There were times though when we missed the pass and didn’t find the change of tempo in our attacking play, we crossed too early when there was another pass on.
“So, trying to get the difference between patience and tempo with individual players bringing the game to life will be massive for us across Christmas and we will need the top players to have really good games. Behind that we will need to be really solid and strong to make sure that we don’t get hurt by what the opponents have.”
“Colchester will be a tough nut to crack as I think it’s something like ten hours since they last conceded which in itself tells its own story.
“Cowley teams (Danny and Nicky Cowley, the joint bosses of Colchester) are always hard to beat and hard to play against. It’s a tight pitch there which I understand is smaller this year than last, so it will be a game for real patience and real individual quality in combinations to try and hurt them and open them up.
“They have some really dangerous forward players with good experience and craft, a bit of pace and power down both flanks who can unlock you with clever passes.
“So, I think they are a nicely balanced side who recruited well in the summer and who I think have a good blend of youth and experience – left footers, right footers, dribblers and passers, soldiers and artists, they have a little bit of everything in the team!”
“A lot of their games have been fairly low scoring so we have to try and make sure that defensively we are at our best to try to limit them and work really hard and play really well to make sure when we create, we take as they give very little up to teams that they play against.
“They are on a good run of form themselves with more draws than they probably would have hoped for – it will be a really tough test for us, but one that we go into off the back of a strong performance against Cheltenham, we must try and continue now to build a run of results ourselves!”
“Boxing Day will be they type of game that physically, mentally, intensely wise you have to be in the right frame of mind for the game as that is how they play and we will need to find the level that we have over the last few weeks!”
“We are hoping to have a big squad to pick from on Thursday which is good for this game as well as the ones that follow so rapidly,” Bonner said and the manager confirmed that in the 24 players and keepers training on Monday were both Armani Little and Tim Dieng who are fit and available for selection and Joe Gbode is now free of the concussion protocols and is also in the squad for Boxing Day with nothing new to report after the Cheltenham draw!
We finished by bidding the boss a Merry Christmas and he sent all of our readers season’s greetings adding that it’s a family Christmas for himself and he fully intends “to be back in Gillingham in time for Gavin & Stacey!”