Gills Manager Mark Bonner said he was pleased with the counter-attacking threat from his team against Southend on Saturday, but knows there is more to do before the first game of the league season.
Jack Nolan and Jayden Clarke gave Gillingham a 2-0 lead during the first-half at Roots Hall before Josh Walker pulled a goal back for the hosts shortly after the interval. Gills added a third soon after, with both Nolan and Marcus Wyllie staking a claim to the goal.
With the season fast approaching, the Gills manager will likely get a boost during the week with a couple of more senior players expected to return from injuries, as he provided an injury update along with his verdict on the win in Essex.
Thoughts on the game...
It was a real split, wasn't it? 60 minutes for lots of the more senior ones, and then it was a really young team, so the last 30 minutes were a bit different. They were the same. They made a lot of their changes around 70-75 minutes, so the game became a bit of a non-event, really.
In the first hour, we looked good when it was counter-attacking phases, but we spent too long without the ball and didn't use the ball well enough. They played well and played with a nice structure. They have got a team that has been together for a while and were good. It was three minutes of action where all of the goals happened on either side of half-time.
I'm not even sure that the first one was a goal, the second was a brilliant counter-attack from us, and the third one was hopeless from us. It was a strange few moments.
It was good minutes for people. It was big minutes for lots of them that needed that on a very long and slow pitch. It wasn't a quality game. There were a lot of technical errors from us, but there were a few bits to like from it. I think our best bits are in counter-attacking phases at the moment, but we have a lot of work to do in other areas.
The first goal...
I thought it was given as a free-kick for something. I wasn't really sure. Then, all of a sudden, I looked up, and they were having centre [kick-off]. I couldn't work out what had happened there.
It was a decent little move for us, and it has come off the post I think. I guess they have said that it has crossed the line. You cannot see on the video whether it has.
Injury updates...
[George] Lapslie will train on Monday. Jonny Williams is training on Monday. Armani Little is on the grass but is not training with the group yet. He should be by the following week. Saturday may come a bit too soon for him.
[Elliott] Nevitt has a bit of a tight hip flexor. He trained on Thursday and was good but felt it a bit on Friday, so again, we will come off him. Maybe we won't use him at all this whole week in the hope that it settles down. Josh Andrews is similar. We may see them at the back end of next week, but we don't want to rush that. Alex Giles is back in training this week as well.
The majority of them are back in this week or should be the next, which will make the squad look a bit more senior. That's good because it creates nice competition. You want to be able to go into, certainly Saturday, if you can, with a strong senior 18 so that we are getting well prepared for the season.
