Gillingham boss Mark Bonner says it isn’t all about possession or clean sheets – he only has one thing in his mind.
The Gills had just 34 per cent possession at Fleetwood last Saturday but still emerged with a creditable point from a goalless draw.
They’re a work in progress under Bonner despite sitting top of League 2 after just three games.
But the Gills boss isn’t going to complain – as long as they keep picking up points.
“We’ll get better as well,” said Bonner. “We don’t have to be the most dominant team in the league in terms of possession stats. If we are, great. We want to be better with the ball, fine.
“But points win prizes, that’s what matters most. We didn’t have enough threat in our game, I thought it got better as it went on.
“We just want to be a bit better but we’re actually really happy with what we’ve done so far.
“To get good results when we know there’s huge improvements left is quite encouraging, I think.
“The statistics might say they had a few more chances than we can remember but I would just say clear-cut ones maybe (they didn’t have many).
“We defended for too long, we were under pressure too often and the ball came in our box too often. They did have some good moments and I think we could have controlled larger moments of the game.
“Of course, the more we can stop that from happening the better. We don’t want to be a team that just goes and nicks points. We want to be a team that is the dominant side.”
It was a second clean sheet in as many away games for keeper Jake Turner, who has impressed at the start of the season.
But that’s not a statistic that the Gills boss is too worried about, he wants more at the other end of the pitch.
“It’s not something we’ve spoken about or necessarily gone after,” explained Bonner.
“We want to be a team that wins and scores, and goes and attacks.
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“We’ll take the wins however they come. If they come with a clean sheet then great because in the end if you can’t win then you need to try and make sure you don’t get beaten.
“It’s a nice statistic to have but it’s the other end where we want to be a bit more productive than we have been in the last couple of weeks and there’s definitely more to come from that.
“You can build some nice confidence even when you’re going through tough times, tough games, long journeys and all those things. People will get bored as I’ve said it every week but I’ve said it for a specific reason.
“Friday was lovely, it was only seven and a half hours, so we were quite happy with that. But it does take its toll, there’s no question about that and the lads were a little bit stiff when we arrived.
“They’ve ground it out, and I think that’s the bit where you get your confidence, when you can grind things out, when it’s not necessarily going the best.
“We will have to do that a lot this season, then hopefully as you build confidence and resilience and get better and stronger, we can get results and it looks a bit more like we’d like it to.”
