Gillingham head coach Stephen Clemence hopes the extra rest will give his side an edge at Forest Green Rovers tonight.
While the Gills were busy preparing for a trip to the New Lawn this week, Forest Green were in FA Cup action at League 1 Blackpool on Tuesday night, losing 3-0.
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It was a final game in charge for their manager David Horseman – replaced the following day by player-coach Troy Deeney who has the task of dragging them clear of the bottom two in League 2.
“It should help us,” said Clemence. “They have obviously had to travel up to Blackpool and then come back, it’s a long journey for them and that is definitely something that should work in our favour.
“But we have to go and play well and make it a fast game, get after them so they don’t get too much time on the ball and whoever we play we are going to have to play better than we did in our last game.”
The Gills were beaten 2-0 at home by Bradford City on Saturday.
Clemence said: “On reflection, when I watched it back, a 0-0 would have probably been a fair result. We let in two disappointing goals and I still didn’t think we posed enough of an attacking threat. I would like to think going into the next game that is what we are trying to do.”
Midfielder Jonny Williams said after the Bradford match that they had been dragged into a game of direct football last time out.
The head coach agreed, and it’s something he was frustrated with, as the Gills ended up in a battle against a physical Bradford side. The visitors committed 19 fouls against Gillingham – more than any other team in the league this season.
Clemence said: “The players came through okay (injury wise) and there was a huge physicality against Bradford, a very physical team. I felt we fell into the trap of playing similar to them at times, which is not stuff I want to see.
“I want to see us trying to play more, we became a bit too direct, especially in the second half. We didn’t create enough throughout the whole game but we had two very good chances in the first half, one might have been over the line, we had another from a corner which we might have done better on.
“It was a tight game and Bradford, although they are below us in the table, they have some very good players, they just missed out on promotion last year after getting to the play-offs, they have a new manager coming in with a change of style and they have had some success with it.”
The Gills are the model of inconsistency in the division, with 10 wins, one draw and 10 defeats. Their league form under Clemence has been lose, win, lose, win, lose.
He said: “This squad is more than capable of going on a run, that is the intention, the aim. We will keep focusing on what we are trying to do here, what we are trying to improve, how we can create more chances and how we can get more results.
“We had a really good week going into the Bradford game, probably the best week we’d had on the training ground, so to come away with a 2-0 home defeat was a little bit of a shock to me but we go again this week, let’s go and take on the next opponent.”
On the injury front, Clemence hasn’t too many issues. Ashley Nadesan has been troubled with injury of late but the head coach has no major concerns.
“We are looking okay,” he said, speaking to the press on Wednesday. “We still have one or two who are touch and go. The games are coming thick and fast, the boys have already played a lot of football and we have got a couple of issues.”
Kick off tonight (Friday) is 7pm.
