Gillingham will be playing Forest Green Rovers just two days after they changed their manager.
Former Watford striker Troy Deeney was announced as the new permanent man in charge of the League 2 strugglers on Wenesday after they parted company with David Horseman.
Forest Green lost 3-0 at Blackpool in the FA Cup on Tuesday night and have picked up just two points from their last five league games.
The change means the Gills will be heading to the New Lawn Stadium in the dark over how the new man will set the team up, but head coach Stephen Clemence insists they will just focus on themselves.
Clemence said: “I’m disappointed for David, first and foremost, I know David and did my pro licence with him a number of years ago.
“Troy is going to come in and get his chance now. He has had a great career and has moved into the coaching world and he will be trying to get his boys fired up now.
“He has been there all season (as a player), he has been involved in the squad and they will all know him, but it is not something I can focus on. We have to control what we are doing here at our football club and we will find out how they play and how they go about things on Friday night but until then we just worry about ourselves.
“It doesn’t affect our plans too much, we know what their squad is, what players they have got, but it’s about what we do, we have to take our game to them and go and try and get a result.”
Deeney, 35, joined Forest Green earlier this season as a player coach and has played 18 times for them this season, scoring four which included a hat-trick against Notts County in September. He came off the bench at Blackpool on Tuesday night.
Deeney said: “One thing I can assure everyone is that we will work our very hardest to bring this wonderful club back to success.
“This is an exciting new role with many challenges that I’ll embrace. and there’s a lot of work for us to do, which has already started.
“I look forward to welcoming fans to our home game this Friday against Gillingham.”
Clemence added: “You are going into the unknown a bit. Is there going to be a change of system? Are they going to make radical changes with their players? you don’t know. All we can do us focus on what we do well and control that, try and take our game to them and try and get on the front foot ourselves and give them some problems.
“They will have issues dealing with us. My squad is very capable of giving anyone a game in this division, I have no doubt, so no matter what Forest Green do I would like to think we are capable of giving them a game on Friday.”
The Gills go onto play Sutton United on December 29 and they have also fired their manager, sacking Matt Gray off the back of an 8-0 loss to Stockport County.
Gray guided Sutton to the Football League for the first time in their history but they are battling to stay there.
United are bottom of the table, one point behind Forest Green Rovers and six adrift from safety.
The club said: “This season’s results have been disappointing and our league position, as we approach the half way mark of the season, led us to decide with great reluctance that a change is necessary.”
Assistant manager Jason Goodliffe has been put in temporary charge ahead of their game against Mansfield.
