O'Keefe | "No room for negativity"

Gills number four says the squad need to remain together ahead of Saturday's trip to Wigan.

Gillingham Football Club can have “no time for negativity” as they aim to move up and away from the Sky Bet League One drop zone, says Stuart O’Keefe.

The Gills defender insists that there is no value in focusing on negatives and is confident that the squad have more than enough quality to move out of the relegation places, if they keep together as a positive unit.

Furthermore, O’Keefe believes that Saturday’s visit to the DW Stadium, where they face promotion-favourites Wigan Athletic, might just be the unlikely place to begin a decent run of results.

Speaking ahead of the game, O’Keefe said: “Being negative is not going to get us out of this mess. Being negative is not going to help anyone. We just want to get that win, regardless of who it is against.

“We want to start a run and start getting some points on the board. If we can do that on Saturday it will be perfect. These types of results can change a team’s season. If we can turn someone over who people weren’t expecting, it can give you that belief and confidence to really go on.

“We need to go there and be organised, be hungry and see where that takes us. Not many people will be expecting us to get much there, so we can go there, enjoy ourselves and try and come away with something.

“On paper, we know that we have some good players in the squad and we shouldn’t really be where we are but the table doesn’t lie. We have had a tough time with injuries and Covid, we’ve been unlucky in some games and in other games we have let ourselves down. There have been a number of reasons why we haven’t clicked and put a run of games together. We can climb out of this mess. There are plenty of games to do that with the quality we have. It has to start sooner rather than later though, or will be left adrift.

“No one likes to be losing, it can affect confidence and morale. We are doing our best to work as hard as we can. We have to go there and play our natural game and be free.

“We are doing all we can on the training field. If we can get something against Wigan it will be a big morale boost for everyone. We are going to need everyone to come together.”

 

Stuart's full interview can be seen on iFollow.