The club's Head Coach reflects on the draw with Crewe at ME7.
Stephen Clemence believed the 0-0 draw with Crewe Alexandra on Good Friday was a fair result.
The point was enough to lift the Gills into seventh in the table, however Clemence knows that his side could have done more in their attempts to win the game against a stubborn Crewe side.
With a quick turnaround to the Easter Monday game at Harrogate Town, the Gillingham Head Coach is looking forward to playing meaningful football at the business end of the season.
Thoughts on the game...
I don't think we played as well as we can do today. I thought we started the game really well, and Remeao [Hutton] and Connor [Mahoney] were linking up really nicely on the right hand side. Crewe slightly changed what they were doing and went and stood on Huts to make it harder for him to get the ball and for us to get started.
He [Lee Bell] was very respectful towards me after the game and said that we have got a really good team. He also said that we had some good threats going forward, and we showed that at the start of the game.
Unfortunately, we did not take one of those chances. To be fair to Crewe, they came back into the game, and I thought it was a fair result in the end. I would have liked one of those balls into the box at the end to fall a bit more kindly for us and for us to scramble a goal over the line. However, I think 0-0 was a fair result.
Injury updates and the use of substitutions...
I haven't spoken to Gary [Hemens] yet, the physio, but I am pretty sure that they are all okay. I tried to freshen it up with the substitutions I made because we wanted some fresh legs to see if they could give us some impetus. The substitutes did really well when they came on at Morecambe, so I wanted to see if that could happen again. You also have to keep people fresh for these two games in the space of three or four days.
Looking to Harrogate on Easter Monday...
I did my A license with Simon Weaver a long time ago. He is a good guy and has done a very good job at Harrogate. I am looking forward to seeing him, but I will be going there to try and beat him. It is a game that we should all be looking forward to.
This is where you want to be at this stage of the season. You are competing to do something for your team, so the boys should be looking forward to the game on Monday.
I will have to look at Harrogate and see how they are going to play. They have changed their systems this season, playing a back four and a back three. I will have a look at that and see how the game will end up looking.