Manager Justin Edinburgh is confident ahead of Gillingham’s televised trip to Bolton Wanderers.
After just over two weeks without a game, Gillingham return to action on Monday night as they travel to the Reebok Stadium to face a Bolton Wanderers side trying to stay on the coat-tails of League One leaders Scunthorpe United.
The game, which will be shown live on Sky Sports as part of the Channel’s “Ten in Ten” EFL games, marks the Gills return to action, not that the management and players have been on “holiday” since the win over Rochdale as boss Justin Edinburgh has been explaining.
“We’ve worked hard and done a lot of strengthening and conditioning work and we hope that it will stand us in good stead ahead beyond Monday night as we head into a busy Christmas period and New Year,” he said.
“We’ve taken a few out of the group to hopefully help their conditioning to get them all fit and its been a thoroughly good couple of weeks – for a change better for individuals rather than the group.”
“We’ve picked up some good form in the League before we had this gap which has been frustrating, but we’re confident that these 16 days off will stand us in a good place for the rest of the season.”
Turning his attention to Sky Sports “Monday Night Football”, Edinburgh said, “Bolton are of course a big club and a big budget in the League and aren’t in the division that they should be – many will acknowledge that!”
“We’re well aware of the challenge that they’ll pose to us, especially when you remember that they’ve won eight of the last nine, but we’re in decent improving form ourselves and it’s a good game for everyone at the club.”
“Things are coming together slowly and I hope that we’ve turned the corner, but we know that there’s still a lot of room for improvement.”
“We’ve been able to keep a reasonably settled side on the pitch and as I’ve said our results are getting better and we want to continue that.”
“We’ve had real battles against some of the big-boys since I’ve been here and we’ve had some good results too and I think the players will see it as a real challenge and take up the gauntlet come Monday night.”
“I think for us it’s about getting a result as we’ve been on the TV a few times now and haven’t done so – that’s one thing we would like to do and that’s show the viewing public what we’re really about!”
“I don’t think that there’s any extra pressure on us playing on TV – I just think that we haven’t got the results for whatever reason. We don’t approach the games any differently, we prepare the same way whoever we play, wherever we play and whenever we play!”
On the injury front, the Gills boss was as “happy” as he had been for several weeks and he reported, “The only two players who are really doubtful for the game are Billy Knott who picked up the knock against Rochdale and Bradley Garmston – everyone else should be OK and available, and that will include Jonathan Bond who rejoined us after injury at the end of last week.”
“It’s looking good and that’s what we want – we want the competition for places to be competitive and that’s what we’re finally getting.”