Gillingham head coach Stephen Clemence was delighted to get a response from his players following a tough period.
Defeats on the road at Harrogate and Bradford led to increased criticism of Clemence and the players – but they got the win they needed on Saturday.
Report: Gillingham 3 Barrow 0
The Gills remain in with a chance of the play-offs – albeit a slim one – after a 3-0 win over Barrow.
Injuries to George Lapslie and Josh Walker in the first half made it a challenge for the Gills, and Barrow remained hard to break down with 10 men, but they managed to find the quality to unlock the visitors.
Clemence said: “You have to adjust and adapt and try and make the right substitutions and find the answers to help the lads, I felt we did that.
“The boys were great, there’s been a lot of criticism thrown about, probably since the Harrogate game and rightly so, we have to accept that.
“What you have to do as an individual and a collective is knuckle down, roll your sleeves up and when you put your boots on you have to go out and give it a right good go, that’s the only way you can shut one or two people up. I asked that of the boys today, I thought they went out there and did that.”
Barrow’s George Ray was sent off for a bad challenge on Walker after 22 minutes and the Gills went ahead in first-half injury-time when Josh Andrews rounded the keeper to score.
An own-goal on 55 minutes was followed by Connor Mahoney’s goal as he latched onto Tim Dieng’s forward pass, taking it past the keeper before finishing.
Clemence said: “I am delighted with the three points, that’s the main thing.
“We were going to have to be patient, they had the third best defence in the league, although they went to 10 men their shape didn’t change, 5-3-1. It made it easier for our defenders to get the ball but we still had the same problems getting past them further up the pitch.
“I felt 11 versus 11 we had a good chance with Johnny (Williams) and the keeper made a good save and once the man got sent off we had to find some solutions.
“It’s been hard for us to get goals and teams have come and tried to stop us at Priestfield, I changed us into a diamond to get Johnny around the two strikers and obviously I felt that helped us.
“I am delighted to get the three goals and I would have liked more, being greedy, but win was the most important thing.”
