John Coleman returns “home” this weekend as Gillingham head North yet again, this time destination Accrington Stanley, which is where the boss has enjoyed most of his 25 years in management. 

“It’s not the first time we have been back,” Coleman told the briefing this week. “We went back when we were at Rochdale, and we managed to win that game – it was touch and go, but we won 3-2!” 

“People are making a big thing about this weekend because of it – I have lots of friends there and Jimmy and I had an unbelievable time there, but my focus now is fully on Gillingham.”

“People have said to me that I must be desperate to win and that’s not the occasion as, as I said when we first came here, I’m desperate to win every single game that we play here.”

“It doesn’t matter who we play, and the people of Accrington know that as well. I have never singled out a game to be more important than another apart from the next game.” 

“It may sound a bit cheerless, and I don’t care, but that is a fact – I want to win one hundred percent of games and one hundred percent of the time and everything I play.”

“Even in the little bit of cricket that we had at training this week – I wanted to bowl them all out! You must have that mentality and whilst it will be nice to see people that we know, but at the end of the day, my job is to win a game of football for Gillingham Football Club.” 

“I always try not to get too high or too low after a result and last Saturday was no different! We’ve had a look at areas where we did well and areas that we can improve on and then focus shifted for everyone to the weekend.” 

“They enjoyed a good win in the week (beating Newport County). To win 5-0 against anybody in this League is a really good achievement, but we will be going into the game full of confidence.”

“A lot of our games are based on fine margins and Saturday was no different apart from possibly Barrow and Newport. I was pleased with the way we set out against Bradford and the way we thought the game would pan out, it did pan out, and we planned for every eventuality.”

“I knew that we were just waiting on the bounce of a ball for us which we haven’t had that many this season, especially since I have been here.”

“But Saturday, it was different – the shot that Conor (Masterson) hit went through someone’s legs on the line, and how many times this season has that been blocked?”

“Since I’ve been here, it’s off the graph! We were due a little bit of luck, but on the balance of play I think that we asked more questions, I think we looked very well organised as we stuck to our game plan well and I don’t think anyone could have begrudged us the win!” 

“But it’s only two wins and that’s a very, very poor return! I want to move away from that as I have never been a person to paper over the cracks or mask things, I like to think that I am respected for being honest, and two wins is just not good enough, and although the performances have dramatically improved, they have to be turned in wins and we must find a way to turn them into wins!” 

“You live and die by your players,” Coleman went on. “And any manager that thinks it’s all about them, are kidding themselves!”

“If you have good players you have a good chance of winning games – you have to have a spirit, you have to have organisation, you have to have a way of playing that they have to buy into as well, but at the end of the day they have to be good enough to adapt as well to whatever happens on the pitch and they have got to be good enough to carry out basic instructions.”

“You will be surprised how many professional footballers – and I am not just saying that about the people here, as I’m going across the whole board – you will be surprised how many professional footballers don’t pick up the basics, i.e. the basics of defending, the basics of attacking.”

“And you must keep reminding them and sometimes there is a lot of repetition… I know that I have good players here that were not performing for whatever reason that was – I think the one thing that the fans can say that they are pleased about apart from the results, is the upturn in perceived work-rate and perceived passion, and I think that if you show that to the fans they will forgive a lot.” 

“Thankfully we are doing that now, but I don’t want their forgiveness, I want them to be part of wins, and there just hasn’t been enough of them.  It’s something that I am not used to, and it is something that I want to put right…” 

Coleman then spoke of his squad for the weekend. Ethan Coleman and Euan Williams have been training on grass this week for the first time whilst Marcus Wyllie is fit, and Jacob Wakeling has been “lively” in training according to the Gills boss. On the minus side, Coleman admitted that Josh Andrews’ season is almost certainly over.