Taylor full of praise for his players after determined display against Preston
Peter Taylor says he has been impressed with what he has seen from his players since he took over as Interim Manager last week.The Gills lost 2-1 against Preston at MEMS Priestfield Stadium on Saturday, and Taylor said he understood if the players showed any signs of nerves considering they have been asked to play slightly differently.
After the game he said: “I can understand it to a point because they have been asked to play a bit of a different way; we all have different opinions of the game.
There are no rights or wrongs; I might ask certain people to do certain things which is different to somebody else doing it.
“I thought they did OK but at times we made mistakes and wrong decisions in the wrong areas, but I can live with that.
“I trained with them Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and they have been really good and enjoying what we are trying to give them.
“They have been first class and I feel sorry for them and they are a bit down because I think they were hopeful they were going to get something out of it.
“Fair play to them for keeping going because its not an easy team to play against – you attack them and there’s a fair chance if they win the ball it goes to Kevin Davies or Stuart Beavon and they keep the ball.”
Taylor said there were far more positives to take from the game than negatives, and explained his decision to recall Leon Legge in to the starting 11.
He said: “Harriman missed the game against Shrewsbury, and because of Kevin Davies I went for Leon Legge because of his strength and I thought that was OK. When the substitutes came on that gave us a bit more aswell.
“I didn’t see too much wrong; I just think we can improve in certain things. Confidence wasn’t low before the game, there was a lot of determination.
“They want to perform well and succeed; I think we will be fine but its just a bit of a disappointing start.
“I need to look at them a bit longer, but with a bit of confidence and if you can get an important win it lifts everybody and you can go from there.”
Gills entertain Notts County on Tuesday evening in their second home game in just four days, and despite the fact the opposition are in the bottom four of the table, Taylor says there are no guarantees his side will take maximum points.
He said: “We will be training before that but they have just put in a lot of hard work today so we won’t be able to do too much but we will sit down and go over things.
“If you look at the league table you would say Preston are doing better than Notts County, but at any level there are tough league matches.
“Crewe last week beat Preston at Preston and that’s what happens in this league and it depends on how the game goes – if you get an early break it puts the opposition under pressure and there’s a fair chance you can hold on.
“We need to start well and a bit better than we did today. Hopefully we can get a break, get a goal and that would lift everybody.”
You can watch Peter Taylor’s post match press conference by clicking here.