Gills boss calls on his side to keep the momentum going as the season enters its final stages.
Neil Harris is on the verge of completing a footballing near miracle after one of the biggest season turnarounds in the club's history. The Gillingham manager, however, isn’t even considering celebrating anything yet and is fully focused on accumulating as many points as possible.
An incredible last-minute winner against promotion-chasing Carlisle put the Gills 12 points above the drop zone at the weekend with only eight games left to play and morale in both the changing room and terraces couldn’t be higher.
Despite the jubilant mood around ME7, Harris’ cork is still firmly in the champagne bottle and he promised that he will keep pushing his team to their limits until the final whistle of the last game of the season in a bid to keep climbing the table.
“How high up the league can we get?” pondered Harris after Saturday’s victory. “Maybe I am not looking so much at Rochdale and Hartlepool (who occupy the relegation places), maybe I am looking more at Wimbledon, Newport, Grimsby and Tranmere, and saying ‘come on, let’s challenge those teams around us now.’
“People might say we have eight games left and we only need six points. We have a real tough run of fixtures but 50 is the next target for me. Let’s get to 50 points as quick as we can.
“We still have work to do. I am fully aware of it and I am not going to get carried away.
“We have work to do as a unit to make sure we get the balance right between being defensively solid and being an attacking threat throughout. The players are now clear after 15 games on how I want them to play and how we want to defend and how we want to build play and the options they have when in possession of the ball. They can only get better as a group as we move forward.”