Gillingham head coach Stephen Clemence felt frustrated too last weekend and insists the way the team played wasn’t part of the plan.
Clemence wants the Gills playing “on the front foot” and will be demanding more from them when they head to MK Dons for a League 2 game this Saturday.
Fans had little to cheer about in a 1-1 draw against Forest Green last weekend and even the addition of an attack-minded wing-back couldn’t fire the Gills to victory against the bottom side.
Many supporters were left frustrated and Clemence was too.
Clemence said: “What we have done in the last five or six games is right up there in the division when you look at the numbers and stats. I know the only stats that matter are how many goals you score and whether you win games, but we are heading in the right direction.
“I have to be honest, the last game I was just as frustrated as the fans were at the end of the game. I do feel that we should be beating Forest Green and I went back home on Saturday and then Sunday, watched the game again and I understand, we played far too slow.
“We started playing possession in our own half, which is not how we are set up to play, but Forest Green showed us that respect and sat off us and it is the first time that someone has really done that to us. I felt we corrected it at half-time, we were fine for 20-25 minutes of the second half, we got a goal ahead and then we didn’t see the game out and could have lost it, which was disappointing.
“The week before we went to Accrington Stanley, above us in the league, we go a goal behind and come back and win the game. The group is not in a bad place, four league games unbeaten, and players should be looking forward to the game at the weekend.
“I think everyone thinks that I am just a possession-based coach but I think you have to play forward, run forward, pass forward and dribble forward if it’s possible and it’s on. We give the boys ideas of how to do that.
“I want to see the ball in the opponent’s half and put defenders under pressure, of course sometimes you have to go back to your goalkeeper, of course you have to go across your back line sometimes to set up for what’s going on in front of that, for forwards and midfielders to get into position, but when (the ball) is going across and across and across, that is not what I want to see.
“I think there has been an improvement, we are playing differently, I don’t want that to be keeping the ball for keeping the balls sake.
“I still want them to get on the front foot, attack teams and create opportunities, which when I look back at games and analyse it, there has been a lot more happening in the last four or five weeks in our games at the attacking end of the pitch than there has been previously and from my point of view that is what pleases me.
“I am happy with where we are at the moment and we have to keep trying to improve and keep getting better too.”
A trip to MK will be a good test to see how that progress works out on the pitch against an in-form team sitting sixth in the table.
Milton Keynes have won six of their last eight games.
Clemence said: “When we have the ball we have to try and hurt them and we have good players at the football club, we are in decent form, if we play like we did against Accrington Stanley and the games before that we will have a real chance.
“We will have to be intelligent with how we get after the ball, you have to be careful, I have seen them in five or six games in the build-up to this where teams have gone different ways against them, they seem to find answers.
“They are in good form, so are we, we have to make sure when we have the ball that we take our game to them and I think we can cause them problems.
“It will be a good test. Since I arrived I went to Wrexham in my first league game where I was just getting started but recently it will be our biggest test but I have full confidence in the boys to show up and give it a good go.”
Clemence said on Thursday that he has a fully-fit squad available.
