As Gillingham prepare for the long trip to Bury on Saturday, coach Ady Pennock has been reflecting this week on a very contrasting seven days  for the club.

This was following a fine win over Southend United on Saturday, in midweek the coach looked on as his side crashed at the hands of Swindon Town.

Philosophically as ever Pennock said, “I’ll be looking for a reaction after Tuesday and hopefully us getting the three points.  Everyone’s disappointed after midweek and the boys are chomping at the bit. they really are…  I said after the game that I felt that Swindon are a side who will hurt you when they get their tails up and sadly second half on Tuesday they did just that.”

“Bury will be a completely different scenario – a big strong experienced organised side – they’ve had a lot of rain up there so it will be very heavy up there. We’ve got to turn up and match them in what is likely to be a physical battle and we know that if we don’t, we won’t get anything out of the game!  The boys were disappointed after Tuesday and they can’t wait to try and put things right.”

“We’ve got eleven games left and they’re all Cup Finals now every one of them.  There’s a group of teams around the relegation area who are involved and these are massive games for us and we’ve got to look forward and start getting some points in hopefully starting at Bury on Saturday.”

“They’ve got some players in of late and are getting some results together – they’re a big side who have got three wins on the spin, but we know what we’ll go in there knowing what we’ve got to do.  We trained Friday morning before leaving and so we’ll be prepared.”

“Tuesday was hard to take as again we play against another side around us and haven’t done great, yet against others who have been top six we’ve done very well – it leaves you scratching your head, it really does, but at the end of the day comes down again to consistency.”

“If they’ve been doing that all season, I don’t think I would be sitting here anyway.  The players look at themselves and know my feelings in the problems that we have got, but on a positive side we have got eleven games to go and we have got some good players here…”

“On the other hand though, Saturday was great and I thought we fully deserved the win and was needed by everyone at the football club.  But that was then and obviously Tuesday was a disappointment.  Football is up and down – it’s full of them – but Saturday was special and what I liked about it was that no-one left their seats in any of the stands.”

“They were there to the very end and clapped the players off which was fantastic…  My feet are firmly on the floor.  We had a good run of draws, but in the last week we’ve picked up more points with the one win rather than two draws.”

“We don’t want to lose games obviously, but if we go win, lose, win, lose for the rest of the season, I’ll take that because you pick up more points.  Saturday was fantastic – but Tuesday was a downer,” Pennock admitted – turning into a “film critic” – added, “but then on Wednesday I went to see “Fifty Shades” with my wife which was even worse!”

The Gills coach was then asked about his squad for the weekend, and he said, shrugging, “We’re hoping that Bradley Dack, Deji Oshilaja and Mark Byrne will be OK for the weekend but realistically they’re fifty-fifty really.  We’ll look at them Friday before we leave and might even leave again until Saturday morning… other than that it’ll be the same squad as Tuesday.  Obviously I’m hoping but…”

Pennock did though have some good injury news.  “Deji went back to Cardiff for a scan on his knee which fortunately has come back OK – we’re just waiting on his groin to clear up which he’s still feeling so its a wait and see with him.”

Finally, Pennock paid tribute to Paul Konchesky who left the club this week – or has he?  The Gills boss explained; “I’d like to thank Paul – he’s been a great pro and I’ve asked him if he’ll do a bit of work for me scouting” he said.

“It was just a case that we had a chat and we came to the conclusion that he was going to move on. The Billericay thing only came up a couple of days ago, but I still want him to be part of it and pass on his experience as a mentor or that type of thing to some of the young lads that will be invaluable as the season goes on.”

“Sadly it won’t free up any money for any new players, we’re going to go with what we’ve got and I’m pleased with what we’ve got so we’ve got eleven Cup Finals now as I said and they start on Saturday and we can’t wait!”