Euan Williams took his chance to impress at the heart of the Gillingham midfield on Saturday.
The 21-year-old former Charlton midfielder has had a disrupted start to life at Priestfield, seeing red on his debut in the League Cup defeat at Swansea in August.
But Gills fans saw his quality at close quarters in the FA Cup defeat to Blackpool at the weekend as he was a stand-out player in the holding midfield role.
Williams certainly seemed to benefit from playing back-to-back games for the first time in a Gillingham shirt.
“He deserved to go again after last week,” said Gillingham boss Mark Bonner.
“He’s not played so much as a single pivot in midfield, he’s played a little bit more as a running eight or even as a 10. But we thought we could get control in the middle of the pitch.
“We thought we could play a bit more of a diamond in midfield to try and outnumber their 4-4-2 but their wide players were really fluid and they almost made a box in the middle of the pitch and we struggled to get a bit of control of that in the first half.
“We matched that up out of possession second half. We knew we could get a 4v2 or 4v3 through the middle in certain moments which is why we were frustrated when we didn’t penetrate and break those lines in the first half.
“We did it miles better in the second half, I really liked parts of that. I liked the challenge of what the fluidity of their team gave us in the first half. In certain moments we did well and in certain moments it wasn’t quite right but you can’t get it right all the time against good sides, they want it on their terms as well.
“It was an interesting game in that sense. In the second half when we had really good control, we did it much better but we just struggled in a few moments to find a real bit of quality to open them up when we had enough chances to do that.”
Bonner also confirmed that Ethan Coleman missed out after picking up a knee injury in the League 2 draw at Swindon seven days earlier.
The Gills boss is hopeful the midfielder can return when the Gills host Port Vale this Saturday.
“He got a whack on his knee last weekend and it never settled down in time,” explained Bonner.
“It was still swollen on Thursday so he probably could have trained on Friday and maybe been involved but he took a whack going into Swindon on the ankle, he took a whack on his knee and it was a game that we didn’t need to force.
“Hopefully he will be back on the grass on Monday-Tuesday with us and that gives him a chance going into next weekend.”
