Manager Neil Harris is hoping for Gillingham’s first away League win of the season as they head to Doncaster Rovers this weekend.
Gillingham go in search of their first away League win of the season this weekend as they travel to the Keepmoat Stadium to face a Doncaster Rovers side who like the Gills were relegated from League One in May and like Gillingham haven’t had the best start to life in League Two.
“Different manager, different division, different style of play but the same stadium – I hope!” Harris smiled as he reflected on the relegated clubs start of which the Gills and Doncaster are two.
“They and Wimbledon have invested more that we’ve been able to, but it shows even with more investment, it’s tough when you go down. There is an adjustment period and Donnie have made a change with Danny Schofield who I played with coming in in the last seven days.”
“They’ve changed the personnel just as we have as they try to change the mentality and culture of the football club isn’t easy at times!”
Schofield made his first home appearance in the dugout in the midweek defeat to Steve Evans’ Stevenage side – a fact that isn’t lost on Harris.
“You just have to look at what the new boss brought to Hartlepool when we went there earlier in the season – they certainly put in their best performance against us, which happens! The “New Manager bounce” we’re fully aware of – it happened to us when I took over and we beat Crewe 1-0 – the difference is that when it is the first game, you sometimes don’t know what to expect from an opponent.”
“We know what to expect from Schoies side as we know each other so well and from seeing their first two games under him at Crewe and against Stevenage.”
“We’re a team at the moment being adaptable to playing against different systems, against different opponents and finding different ways to press the ball.”
“Sometimes when you’re not hitting the heights that you hope to – especially at the top end of the pitch – then you have to find different ways to set the team up and almost recreate yourself without over complicating things for the players.”
Tuesday’s defeat at leaders Leyton Orient was the Gills first in October – effectively twenty-five days without defeat or as we put it to Harris, twenty-five small steps on the way to getting where the manager wants to reach.
“We talk about seven unbeaten and just two defeats in eleven and the fact that we’ve scored six games in a row, some may not like it!”
“But when you’re trying to build a football club you have to take small steps and to go that number of games unbeaten, I’m proud of that and we need to get back on that run as quickly as possible.”
“We haven’t won as many games as we’d have liked in the League, but we had to start somewhere, and we have to continue that thought process with the players that we have to be really difficult to beat; really difficult to play against.”
“But then I have to expect more from the top end of the pitch from the attacking players! If we’d had that – a bit more consistency in the final third and a bit more luck as well with goals being ruled out and hitting the bar and post, then we would be six or seven places better off really comfortably, but we’re not!”
“Small graces that we we’re that long unbeaten in October – of course it’s a positive – but we’ve got to repeat that moving forward.”
The omens for the weekend are hopeful for Harris and his side as the head to Yorkshire as the Gills have lost just once in their last seven trips to Doncaster and have also lost just once in their last seven meetings with Rovers home and away.
Harris travels though probably without Shaun Williams although the boss admitted that only the travelling would probably prevent the midfielder from being involved whilst Olly Lee and Ben Reeves are both still on the treatment table.