With two big home games facing his side in the next five days, Gillingham coach Ady Pennock has been talking to KSN about the challenges ahead.

 

He has also been reflecting on a week after a great win at Bury last Saturday…

Pennock, who himself is suffering from a heavy cold, told us, “It’s always a bonus when you win a game on Saturday and you get a free week – morale’s been good and everyone’s looking forward to tomorrow afternoon.”

“The boys’ attitude has been first class since we’ve been here and I really can’t fault their efforts with the most important things being the good results that we’ve picked up recently; winning two of the last three and that’s been huge!”

“Been disappointed with some of the injuries as some have been “late” injuries that haven’t come up until the day before or morning of the matches – we’ve adjusted and gone from there.”

“But the one issue is clean sheets as clean sheets will win games and I can always see us scoring – touch wood! But it’s not just the eleven that start a game, it’s the whole squad and that can only be good.”

“It’ll come and as long as we win games – we’ve ten Cup Finals left now and this will be a tough test for us at the weekend and on Tuesday.”

“The Chairman hasn’t said anything about next season yet, but we all know that we’ve got to stay in the division and that’s where we’re focused.”

Turning his attention to Saturday’s opponents at Priestfield, Pennock said, “Scunthorpe’s performances haven’t been great of late – I went to their game at Charlton on Tuesday with my staff and I saw that they are a very good side who are just having a sticky patch at the moment, which will hopefully continue on Saturday.”

“They’ve got some very good players and they shouldn’t have lost at the Valley and I thought there was only going to be one side to go on and win the game, but then they conceded a penalty right at the death.”

“They’re up there on merit as they’ve some very good players, but we’re confident and really looking forward to it. They’ve had two trips to this part of the world this week and I just hope that whilst they had a safe journey home and back for tomorrow, I hope that they were long trips for them.”

“We lost heavily at Scunthorpe earlier in the season, just as we did at Bolton who we’ve got on Tuesday, and you could say that we owe both sides one, but we’re completely different now.”

“They’re two sides who have been using similar players all season, but we’re totally different – different personnel; different shape – neither result was good and we’ll look to put it right!”

“The big thing for us is to get the three points and worry about ourselves rather than either Scunthorpe or Bolton – they are both very good sides.”

Pennock earlier in the week said that he wanted three more wins for the Gills safety – we asked him to explain.

“If we can get to 51 or 52 points we should be OK,” he said, “which is three more wins! I think the quicker we get there, the better as the pressure will just build and build and build until we reach that mark.”

“We had a great result last week and I hope we can repeat it in front of our own fans who will play their usual big par, I hope providing they haven’t got the cold that I’ve got at the moment!”

“I hope that they’re all still here and singing and dancing after 90 odd minutes, very happy and clapping the boys off the pitch.”

Finally and that all important team news and Pennock admitted, “Definitely missing will be Bradley Garmiston with his hamstring, Rory Donnelly with his ankle and I don’t think that Scott Wagstaff will make it either, whilst we’ll look at Deji (Oshilaja), Scott (Wagstaff), and Ryan (Jackson)before kick-off.”