The Priestfield pitch took centre stage when Steve Lovell met with the press this week ahead of Gillingham’s trip to Shrewsbury Town at the weekend.

Asked for his views on the new pitch, the Gill boss smiled and said, “hopefully it’ll make a lot of difference!  We’ve kept on how we play better away from home on better pitches and hopefully it’ll help us to continue the football that we’re looking to play.”

“A lot of the grounds that we go to have a similar pitch, so it’s great that the Chairman has decided to put the pitch in and all the players are extremely grateful – hopefully it’ll help us get back to winning ways which is what we needed to do.”

“We nearly got back to where we were at the start of the season last weekend – the style of football that we like to play with the players that we finally got back.”

“It makes a difference when certain players come back into the side which allows us to play a certain way that I like playing.  That’s something we’ll take into this week at Shrewsbury as we caused Peterborough a lot of problems and against a “lesser” side we’d have probably got a better result!”

“We still can’t concede the goals that we are, but three of them on Saturday were a little bit special and wouldn’t have been scored by other teams.”

“If we stop teams from scoring, we’ll obviously have every chance of getting results given the chances that we’re creating probably deserve!  It’s important that we do that on Saturday and it’s a very important game for us that we get something out of the game.”

“It’s still very early in the season, but it’s important we get back to winning ways as quickly as we can…  we’re all trying to get back on track and where better to go and get back to winning ways rather than a side immediately above us.”

“They’re always a well organised team and if you look at their record, they don’t score many, but they don’t concede many either. It will be hard to break them down, but we will go there and play the game we want to and hopefully bring the points home.”

The injury news though wasn’t great from the Gills boss.  “I’ve never known anything like it with injuries it in such a short space of time,” Lovell admitted, “we get three back and lose another three!”

“Elliott List and Regan Charles-Cook are both definitely out barring a Friday miracle and Connor Ogilvie is very doubtful – hopefully all three may feature at Portsmouth next week!  It knocks you for six, but we’ve got to roll up our sleeves and get on with it.”

“Things aren’t going right for us at the moment and that’s the challenge for all of us and is something that we are all looking to do at Shrewsbury – it won’t be for want of trying on our behalf.”

“If I can get a squad to pick from to play differently against the various formations that we’ll be playing against – it’ll give me opportunities to play the way that I want to play.”

“So far the injuries have dictated how I want to play and what system, which some people have compared to last season.”

“We’ve got seven points from nine games – last year it was seven from twelve, so I guess you can compare, but as long as the rest of the season can be compared to last season and we pick up then great!”