Stephen Clemence is confident he’ll have the backing of the Gillingham chairman in the summer to solve their goalscoring problem.
The Gills head coach has admitted targets they chased in January didn’t come off, and with injuries to those strikers they did capture, he’s been left facing an uphill battle.
Clemence is looking forward to a summer where he can get things sorted.
He said: “A lot of these managers that are challenging at the top (of League 2) have had quite a bit of time to get their team in place.
“Look at the top seven teams at the moment, six of those managers have probably had three of four transfer windows, some have had six or seven. The only one who hasn’t [Mike Williamson at MK Dons] has inherited a team that has come down from League 1 and he has got players back on loan from very good clubs in January that really helped him kick on, and that person has done a very good job and fair play.
“But you do need time to build a team, and really the only person I have brought in to help us so far has been Remeao Hutton, who I think has made a good impact and given us that pace and athleticism.
“I have got some good players I want to keep working with at the football club, but of course I would love to add to it to help those players and also help myself and produce a better team for Gillingham football club.
“January didn’t turn out for me exactly as I thought it would, but we have to make sure we have a better window in the summer.
“When you don’t score goals on a regular basis you are going to get a team that’s inconsistent.
“The boys are working really hard on the training ground and the staff, players and myself are trying to find solutions in the short term to try and help us score more goals. In the long term we have to make changes going forward and I’m sure everyone can see that.
“It is a collective thing, everyone has to contribute, unfortunately we haven’t scored on a regular basis enough, there has been occasion we have done it, we scored three goals on three occasions and come from behind on two or three occasions, which hadn’t been done at the club for a while.
“There is signs of improvement and I do believe we create more than when I first arrived, there are some positives but negatives as well and we all have to look at ourselves and I am included in that where we haven’t been good enough, especially in the run-in. We have let a lot of people down, we can only apologise for that, it hasn’t been through a lack of effort.”
Clemence had hoped to strengthen his forward department in January as Macauley Bonne and Tom Nichols left but Josh Andrews arrived injured and has only just started to feature off the bench while Jorge Hurtado made a handful of substitute appearances before suffering a serious knee injury. Burton loan forward Josh Walker hasn’t had the impact hoped for.
Clemence admitted they missed out on other players but said: “I won’t be the only one, there will be other managers who didn’t get everything they wanted either, but what I have got is a very supportive chairman who I do believe wants to back me and said only 10 days ago that I will be here next season. I think he will back me in the summer to get the players that we need at this football club.”
Gillingham were linked with Peterborough United striker Jonson Clarke-Harris in January, among others, and a front-man with a proven record is something Clemence will be looking at in the summer.
He said: “Ideally, you want someone who has a track record, who has scored goals over a period of time.
“I do think we lack some pace and athleticism and some strength in certain areas and that has been pretty obvious to me since the day I arrived.
“January didn’t turn out exactly as I thought it would and that is not blaming anybody, it is very difficult to do deals in January, but it didn’t go to plan and we’ve got to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
“The summer window is a much easier window to deal with because you have players who are out of contract but of course we have to look at people who have a track record of setting up goals and of scoring goals.
“If they have done it over a period of time, the numbers don’t normally lie, if you have set up goals or scored goals at your previous clubs then you normally bring that to your next destination, it shows that you have got quality and ability to do that.”
Clemence appears keen to bring Watford loan man Jorge Hurtado back next season after injury ruined his move this term, while Connor Mahoney is another who he has been impressed with while on loan from Huddersfield.
Hurtado attended a game recently following his knee surgery and Clemence said: “He does keep in contact with one of our sports scientists. It was good to see him and his big smile, he does light the place up when he’s here.
“He has become a bit of a hero already around the place after three sub appearances and one of those was very impressive when he came off the bench that night (against Swindon).
“We will keep in touch over the summer with him and see what he looks like next season.”
Following Mahoney’s weekend comments about potentially staying on with the Gills, Clemence said: “Conor is a quality player and he has got assists and he has got goals so they are the kind of people that you need in your football team.
“I believe if he played with more players that had that, he would actually assist and score more himself, because I think a lot of teams do set out to stop him and to stop maybe one or two different areas and then they know they stop Gillingham, and that’s been a problem for us.
“We want to try and improve the squad and to help the players that are going to be here next year, to make sure we can be more consistent, and we will be more consistent if we create more and score more goals, that is the aim.”
