Gills Manager looking forward to weekend clash...
Martin Allen says this weekend’s top of the table clash against Port Vale will be a special occasion.
Two points separate the two sides as they go in to Saturday’s game, and the Gills boss admitted that it won’t be a `normal` weekend.
Speaking in his midweek press conference he said: “I understand the fact that everyone is looking forward to it but of course we have been down to Bristol and away to Southend.
“I think in the team talk before we played Bristol Rovers I remember saying `let’s set next week up by winning here, ` but we had to do it there first. That was the team talk on the Friday evening and the players put in a fantastic performance.
“We had a lot of supporters down at Bristol aswell and now it has really set it up for a top of the table clash and I’m sure it’s great for both sets of supporters, players, managers and everybody involved with both football clubs.
“You can’t deny it, it’s a special occasion.
“We don’t talk about this being the biggest game of the season; we just try and do exactly the same every week. We’re not going to spend seven hours on our training pitch doing this and that; we want it to be steady throughout the season.
“We haven’t treated it any differently, we haven’t trained any differently. Friday will be normal, Saturday will be normal but then of course we know it’s not normal, it will be an amazing Saturday afternoon at three o’clock when we start.
“We tend not to do too much motivation, we hope our players are focussed and self-motivated. Our players have a lot of team talks and chat with each other and if you can’t get up for a game like this then you are in the wrong job.
“There will be a big crowd full of expectancy and our players need to be calm and cool and they have to go out and put on an ice cold performance and come ten to five when we leave that field we need to be absolutely exhausted having given everything that every player has in his locker.
“I have highlighted all their strengths and it’s great that Micky Adams is coming back here aswell. He did a brilliant job when he was a player at this football club but we’ve got to make this a special occasion for our players to go out and put on a great performance and really show what they can do on our own patch.”