Gills boss Justin Edinburgh has been reflecting on the sides start to the season this week, and has highlighted one major difference to the start of 2016/2017. 
“You need competition for places and when we had that here last year it was competitive but in the right way,” the Gills boss told us this week. “We just haven’t had that same competition at any one given time so far this season to be able to make sure that the players are aware of that – not to be fearful but to be aware and know that you’ve got to be on your game to keep your place in the team! Once we’re in that position I believe that the consistency that we’re striving for will be there.”
“That said, we are still only two points off of the Play Off places. We strive to excel here and our ambitions and standards are high. Statistically its not great at the moment but positionally and the distance we are from the top end of the table at the moment is minimal. In our next six games I think that four of them are at home and so now is the time to push on and capitalise on that – and that starts this weekend against Oldham here at Priestfield. We’ve had a couple of good performances here and some good results recently and we’ll definitely be looking to continue that on Saturday. I still think that the League is very open – yes there are a couple of teams at the top who are on twenty plus points but then after that its open from top to bottom. I did predict that before the start of the season that it would be even more open than it did last year and I think that that’s being proved to be the case!”
Edinburgh then focused on this weekend. “Saturday will be no different to the previous home game here when we played Coventry who were bottom of the League,” he said. “They weren’t a bad side and the following week they went and beat unbeaten Port Vale so I think that proves how open the League is this year. Don’t underestimate Oldham by any stretch of the imagination – their manager will be really cautious and conscious of the position that his side are in; he’s new into the team and probably considers that he’s no-where instilling his own ideas into the side and so if we come here and think that we’ve just got to roll up and get the comfortable win is not going to be that easy! It’s what we want and what we strive for and we’ll be coming to Priestfield on Saturday looking to continue what we’ve started at home!”
“It’s difficult to have a ninety minute good performance home or away at any stage – in the majority of our home games we’ve been able to show some really good spells; some have been disappointing; but it you can take care of the performances you will get the results that you want!”
After the midweek loss at Millwall, there have been a few critical posts on Social media and the Gill boss was happy to address them. He said, “It’s an opinionated business and everyone has their own. Theres a lot of avenues for people to have their say these days but I think you have to err on the side of caution with it all. For us to be where we are we have to ask if its where we want to be and of course its not as we’ve set our standards higher – at least in the Play Off places! Is 12th place at this time of the season a disaster? Of course it’s not – we’re two points off of the Play Offs and three off relegation places – fans will be as patient as they want to be. If they look at it, they will have definitely seen an improvement in the squad and the way we play. That said we haven’t really found the consistency levels that we all want but there are reasons – twelve games in – I do believe that once the squad is fully fit, the patience won’t be needed as if I can put out the side that I want to onto the pitch in any given game, we will fear no-one in this League.”
The Gills boss did have some good new to finish on the injury front, “Cody (McDonald), Scott (Wagstaff), Bradley (Dack) and JET (Jay Emmanuel Thomas) all joined training on Friday and are all looking to be involved and that’s a massive boost. We’ve had Franck Nouble’s international clearance from China and we picked up no injuries at Millwall on Tuesday and so hopefully we’ll be looking a lot more-healthy than we have for a few weeks