Interim Manager Peter Taylor talks us through his first week of training
Gills interim boss Peter Taylor spoke to the press this afternoon, ahead of his first game in charge at Priestfield for 13 years, and revealed it’s been a very positive week, “The players have worked extremely hard. Myles Weston hasn’t been well all week but he trained today and we all finished the session well.“The attitude of the players has been very good, which doesn’t surprise me, they are all a good bunch of lads and with myself coming in as a new coach, they are going to be doing things right. It’s been another sunny day in Kent.”
Following his appointment on Monday evening, Peter has had to hit the ground running and admits there is no point making major changes, “Having been to Priestfield a few times this season I had a rough idea of the team and what they can do.
“It’s not until you coach a team seven days a week, that you get to know a bit more about them. At training the past couple of days we haven’t changed much, when we have a Tuesday, Thursday and Friday session you can’t change too much, you don’t want to confuse people ahead of the game. We want to keep it simple, and the players have responded very well.”
Responding to criticism that the Gills have been guilty of playing an overly direct style this season, Taylor added, “I’ve heard that Gillingham may have played the ball long too often but to be fair, when they played against Brentford, here, I didn’t think that they did.
“There was some good football played that day. League 1 is a tough division it’s not the Premier League and it’s not League 2, there are times when you can play the ball on the ground, and other times when it’s too dangerous and you have to play it long and not be as creative.
“My philosophy is that when you haven’t got the ball I expect the team to be defensively organised, when you have got the ball I would like to give the players a bit of freedom, move around and be hard to mark, be unpredictable. These are the types of things I’m talking to them about.”
Preston North End are the Gills opponents on Saturday and Taylor admits he can’t wait to get back into the Priestfield dug out and meet the Gillingham faithful, saying, “I had a very good year here, I thoroughly enjoyed it and it ended up a really successful year and I am looking to achieve that again.
“Hopefully I get well received on Saturday, but hopefully and more importantly the team perform well. If they perform well and, show what they are capable of, with some real desire, and the supporters are pleased with what they have seen, a grafting team, and if we are lucky enough to get a result, then great.”