After taking Premier League side Luton Town to the limit in the Carabao Cup in midweek, Gillingham head north this weekend looking to continue their amazing away League form thus far.
After Saturday’s unexpected and desperately disappointing 3-0 defeat to Colchester United ended their proud unbeaten start to the League Two season, The Gills will be looking to get back to winning ways.
Talking to KSN at this week’s briefing, Neil Harris was extremely pragmatic about the weekend’s disappointment…
“It helped having a game on Tuesday,” he admitted, “I had to quickly recover from the manner of the defeat and my huge disappointment in the group in the second half, I had to deal with and get over quickly – probably by Sunday lunchtime – as my attention quickly had to turn to Luton to be prepared by Monday mid-day to deliver the game plan to the players.”
“The plan for Tuesday had to be put together Friday, Saturday and Sunday to be delivered Monday morning so the players takes things in.”
“So really, Colchester I had to digest and move on from Sunday morning! I have watched some of it back again since the Luton game to re-watch just to digest it again and take it in to show some players some clips that I wasn’t happy with!”
“I wasn’t there after the game on Saturday to bemoan the players too much because it was one bad half of football – but what I made very clear was that I don’t want a repetition of that very often!”
“I can’t get too high or too low because if we had won on Saturday, we’d have got more League points in August than we did before Christmas last year.”
“When you sit joint top on twelve points, it is a brilliant, brilliant start!”
“Someone showed me a graph from the EFL website that lists all 72 clubs and the points gained since January 1st and we are in the TOP FIVE.”
“That’s nothing to be scoffed at by this group of players – huge credit to them – Saturday we lost one game of football!”
“So, if I’m not getting carried away when we keep clean sheets, that’s why I won’t get too low with the players.”
“As far as I’m concerned that’s gone and is forgiven and we move onto Grimsby on Saturday, and I expect us to get back to the standards that we’ve been at.”
“The players know me; the senior players know me and the players who have played with me before know how I work – they know if I’ve got something to say, I’ll say it and that’s it.”
“I had to digest it quickly as I had to set up a game plan which completely changed our identity and shape for Tuesday night.”
“What I will say is that however disappointed I was with them on Saturday, how well did they do on Tuesday night to go out and play like they did was outstanding.”
“Squad rotation isn’t something that I’ll always do – we’ve played seven games in August in twenty odd days and with Saturday it’s eight games in four weeks ultimately – it’s a hell of a lot of football considering Tuesday was just Luton’s third game!”
“I’ve tried to manage the group best I can – remember we have some really, really good young players coming through, players in their early twenties and alongside the “seniority” I have to make sure that I manage them properly… I’m not always going to get it right – maybe Saturday I didn’t!!!”
“Over the course of the season, we feel that we’ve got a competitive squad so if we lose a player or two, we’ve got a player or two to go in and do a job from the start or impress coming off the bench.”
The manager confirmed that his transfer business – in and out – is done and his squad for Grimsby may come too early for a recall for George Lapslie after injury – although there is a possibility of playing against Leyton Orient in the Papa John’s Trophy at Priestfield on Tuesday – but Oli Hawkins and Dom Jeffries are still out for another few weeks.
However, Harris will have Max Clark back available and in the squad having become a father in the past week.