Gillingham go into this weekends SKYBET League One fixture with Rotherham United looking not only trying to win back to back games for the first time under Steve Evans, but to also give the manager a happy birthday present.
Evans, who was 57 on Wednesday faces a former side for the second successive home game, admitted a certain satisfaction of the way his side are progressing as he told us, “Without a shadow of a doubt, our performances are improving! I think that when you put a totally new group together, it takes time!”
“And I’ve never ever been fortunate enough to take over a football club where the team is flying high at the top end of the League – there’s always been a problem with either the current run of form that they’re in or there is a rebuild exercise in the summer. And that’s what we felt Gillingham had to be about – we didn’t have big resources and must plan accordingly. We’ve got a lot of young players in the group but they’re coming together very nicely now and are maturing together. They’re getting to know each other’s games and that always takes time and that’s why I’ve said before in the second half of the season we will be significantly better than we are now. Whether that get the results that we need we will see!”
“We’re getting a settled side now and that’s what we had when we success at Rotherham – we used to try and find ways to destruct that team; we used to try and find reasons but ultimately we couldn’t as the team almost picked itself. And at this stage of the season without any additional business in January we’re getting closer and closer – we’re all but two or three players that’s picking itself!”
Evans then acknowledged the support of the Priestfield faithful has been superb. “The performance of the fans against Peterborough surpassed the good one on the pitch. To be two nil down against such a good side as Peterborough – we gave away a ridiculous penalty, a ridiculous penalty!” said Evans shaking his head. “But for the supporters to stay with us the way they did, they nearly got their rewards for all of us. They nearly got the point – in not all three – as I think that we’d have got the goal back through Mika earlier, we could have won the game not just drawn it! But that’s all about opinions and I’m sure that Darren Ferguson probably thinks they stood up to it, but I don’t when I look at the chances we had. But that’s not just in one game – we don’t have the resources of the big boys in the League – Gillingham will never have!”
“If you get into the Championship; you’re never going to have the resources of the West Brom or others. But you can build a team another way that can be successful. Eddie Howe is the prime example and is the master at it. He did not have the best resources at Bournemouth in League Two and IN League One. Different ball game in the Championship – I think the Football League fined them heavily for overspending as he suddenly had some serious funding. But to get to the Championship, Eddie worked wonders on budgets that would be not dissimilar to the one that we’ve got at Priestfield.”
“I read the words of Kenny Jackett (Portsmouth manager) who said getting back to back wins in this League is the difference of four or five places and that’s so true! And the difference from four or five wins takes you from the bottom of the table to the Play Off group – that’s how tight things are and how quickly things can change. To get those wins in any League is tough. It’s a tough and unforgiving division League One – the standards are really high, and you’ve got the majority of players and teams who are not quite in the Championship, and that’s standard is very high as we all know!”
“All of a sudden you need three or four straight wins and it puts you into that group – and you don’t want to but then you can afford to a game or two down when you don’t reach the heights of have the luck; you don’t take the chances and concede sloppy goals. You can afford that, but you can’t afford that when you’re not putting your two or three game winning runs together. Any team that does it – we’ve already seen Ipswich do it at the start of the season; we’ve seen Peterborough do it – I think Sunderland are probably capable of going on that run now because of the change (in management) and the good wins they’ve have since – there are so many good teams in this League this year. Someone said to me the other day who’s going to finish in the top six. I think I named nine of them – that’s how tough and tight it is!”
“We’ve got a full squad for Saturday except for Matty Willock who we hope will be back next week. We need to get him pitch and get at his best – we have one of the top League One players in our dressing room; we just have to get him on the pitch consistently – he’s frustrated and want to play and has all of our support!”
Evans remember is a passionate Scotsman, and KSN finished by asking what the Gills boss would be doing at 9:00 Saturday morning. He said smiling, “I’ll be watching BBC and won’t put ITV on! Seriously though, I’ve always said whether its football, rugby or cricket you want England as a nation to be successful – I think it has all the spin offs! If England win the World Cup on Saturday, and we win, then lets all get into “The Factory” (the Gillingham club bar) and I’ll go home on Monday!” We’ll all drink to that…