Gillingham head coach Stephen Clemence was disappointed his side didn’t finish Grimsby Town off – but saluted the players’ efforts after a tough week.
Clemence revealed that the midweek sickness bug had eventually led to nine players going down with the illness along with three members of staff. Goalkeeper Glenn Morris, George Lapslie and Tim Dieng all managed 90 minutes despite struggling in the build-up to the game.
Report: Gillingham 1 Grimsby 1
Gillingham still managed to create a host of good chances to beat Grimsby after recovering from going a goal down but the match finished 1-1.
Clemence said: “The players are very disappointed and some of them are drained through the illness as well.
“For some of them to stay on the pitch the length of time they did was fantastic.
“The dressing room was quiet and down but I have told them how proud I am of them.
“I am very disappointed we haven’t won the game, I expected us to win it like I expect us to win every game, that’s what we set out to do, but we haven’t taken our chances.
“That is not having a go at the strikers, the chances are falling to lots of different players and we just haven’t put them away, if you do that then you do that you’ll end up on the end of bad results or you’re going to draw football matches.
“I can’t fault the players’ efforts, what they created was absolutely fantastic, some very good performances and I had nine players who have hardly trained this week.
“Three players played and they had hardly eaten anything, the ones who did play managed to train on Friday but didn’t do much and to get through that fair pay to them, we’re disappointed, but we take the point and move on with seven to go.”
Lapslie equalised for the Gills after 15 minutes – two minutes after they had conceded. In a game of numerous chances it was a surprise the scoreline stayed that way.
Clemence said: “We have dominated for 95 minutes, we haven’t won it, but there are plenty of positives to take, plenty of good stuff to review for the players but we do have to find that cutting edge, it has been a problem at this football club for a while hasn’t it?
“We have had some good chances in the first half and, one was cleared off the line, we’ve had a great effort from Shad (Ogie) which was quite a long way out but it was a good strike, then Connor (Mahoney) hit the post with the follow-up.
“We had a good opportunity when George Lapslie goes through and cuts it back and unfortunately the finish goes over the bar, George was getting pulled for me and if he goes down it’s probably a penalty, same as Shad when he went through. We do create more now but we still don’t score enough.
“I am not stupid, I know the problems at this football club and they will get sorted going forward.”
