Stephen Clemence has been talking to KSN after another inconsistent week with his side taking just one point from their last three games as they prepare to face struggling Grimsby Town at Priestfield on Saturday afternoon.

A sickness bug saw the club call off training on Thursday with Clemence confirming, “We had a number of players reported sick, more than I have ever encountered before, so we were forced to cancel training, as there are a couple of staff down as well.

“We are hoping that it’s just a 24-hour bug and we hope that it will be training as usual Friday, but we just do not know. We could not get the other players in on Thursday as we do not know if they might have it as well and be carriers and we do not want it to spread any further.

“I do not think it will hurt us too much as I am still hoping that we can do a full session on the pitch on Friday. Of course, we would have liked to have seen them today to review the last game, but at the minute the attention is that they all get better and hopefully report as normal on Friday!” 

Looking back to Tuesday’s defeat at AFC Wimbledon, that saw the Gills slip from seventh to tenth in the incredibly close League Two play-off chase, the Head Coach admitted, “It’s been a disappointing week in general, taking only one point from three games was not what we wanted!” 

“I felt that we deserved to be beaten at Barrow. I thought the Tranmere game we have enough chances to win three football matches in the second half and that was again our Achilles heel, we did not put the ball in the back of the net!

“We were looking forward to Tuesday, seventh v eighth and I did feel for an away game we started well. Good shot blocked in the box and a header over the crossbar before they score through a mistake from us and the game changes shortly after that!

“I do believe it would have been a much better game at eleven v eleven and I think we could have come back into it!” 

Some Gills fans questioned the Coach’s decision to take off Oli Hawkins at the break, and Clemence was asked about the change; he said, “We took Oli off because despite him having many strengths, running around a football pitch chasing when playing against eleven men and you have got ten, is not one of them!

“I know that Oli is a threat in the box, but we had to make sure we stayed in the game! The idea at half time was to go five-two-two because we went four-four-one at the end of the first half and they put five up against our back four.

“If we had carried on like that, the score could have been a lot bigger. We went with the two as we felt that Connor (Mahoney) and Jonny (Williams) would pressure their back three, and everywhere else we were man for man all over the park. It is never ideal playing without a striker, but that is what we felt we had to do.” 

With just three points separating seventh and eleventh in League Two, the Gills have now just eight games left to reach the post season, and Clemence told us, “I know it’s congested, but now I am just concentrating on Saturday and the Grimsby game. I know how many games are left, but all we can do is take one game at a time.

“We have had a bad week, but the week before we had a very good week, so it is now down to us as a Football Club to react and get a good result at the weekend! They have done OK recently and one thing for sure they will give us a good test.” 

“There is not a massive difference with any teams in this division, any team gives any team a good game and I am expecting no different on Saturday.

“But it will be down to us to take the game to them and get off to a good start which is something that we have not done enough of, and can we get all three points?

“We have the players to do it, but once they get over that white line, they have got to go and perform!”