Martin looks ahead to Christmas period...
Martin Allen says enough preparation and thought has been put in to the Christmas period in order to avoid things becoming too hectic.The Gills face five games in the space of just 15 days, the first of which being played tomorrow against York at Bootham Crescent.
Gary Mills’ side were promoted from the Conference last season via the play-offs and are comfortably in mid table, but Martin says he is expecting a difficult game following their convincing result last weekend.
He said: “Well they have just won at home 4-1, it was a fantastic performance against Bristol Rovers and they have some very good players, young players.
“We are the top of the league team, everyone raises their game and as we say every week, we need to be ready for it.
“The Conference is a tough division to get out of and the manager has done a great job, there is no doubt about it. “
Martin revealed he has a fully fit squad to choose from before then saying the busy nature of the Christmas period will not alter how he selects his team.
He said: “We do literally take it game by game; we see how our players are in training and how they are recovering from games. We are very lucky because we can watch a DVD in the cold light of day and by using statistics you can learn an awful lot.
“I’m starting to think about the next game as soon as the last one finishes. We started our work Tuesday morning, the players had Wednesday off and we did a bit more yesterday morning and then we will train at the training ground first thing Friday and will then leave the ground at 11 o’clock.
“I don’t see it [Christmas] as putting the strain on and I don’t see it as hectic. We did our planning for this about a month ago so the players knew their schedule, it was all put in to place and they knew what they were doing.
“When you have a lot of games you don’t train as much so that isn’t hectic. Hopefully they spend more time on the sofa resting, so that isn’t hectic. The bus we have [for our trips] is first class and the players have computer games and they can watch films on their ipads.
“The trips are not hectic; they are fed on there and can sleep on there. The hotels are top class that Mr. Scally lets us stay in. We have 24 players plus some development squad boys so we have more than enough players, they have Christmas Day off so what could be better?
“We are looking forward to it, we can’t wait, we’re excited by it and it’s a lovely time to play football.
“We have seen the scouting reports of York and will put out a team which we think will do a job. We are playing five games in 15 days so every three days there is a game – that’s easy, I could do that.
“Our players are fit as butcher’s dogs and we have loads of players so we are comfortable with that.”