Gillingham’s win at Port Vale on Saturday whetted the appetite of manager Gareth Ainsworth as he plots a way of building his own promotion-winning side.
The Gills beat League 2 runners-up Port Vale 1-0 thanks to Aaron Rowe’s 56th-minute strike. It was a third win under Ainsworth, who finished the season without a loss in his nine games in charge.
Report: Port Vale 0 Gillingham 1
Ainsworth took over as manager just over a month ago, with a two-year plan to get the Gills moving in the right direction.
“Well done players,” he beamed, in a nod to his team after Saturday’s end-of-season win.
“You were excellent and thank you for the win but sorry to Port Vale, my old club, they mean a hell of a lot to me, and I’m just glad that we didn’t cost any promotions.
“They (won promotion) last week, and it was very respectful from the Port Vale fans to stay off the pitch, that’s great for me and so nice for us to go over at the end (to the Gillingham fans) and see those 600 there, and I mean ‘wow’.
“I didn’t see too many Hawaiian shirts (among them) but I saw a lot of pride at the end.
“They were very, very noisy during the game and in somewhere that’s been promoted, to hear your own fans is really good, and gives me great enthusiasm and great belief that we can achieve at this place and I’m really happy. Long may it go on.
“I know there wasn’t too much on it at the end, because Doncaster won (to claim the title) but it brought back great memories being there, a fantastic football club. It just whets my appetite for seeing them celebrating, seeing everyone on the pitch, seeing what they’ve got and how they’ve built it.
“We can do this. It’s going to take time and believe me, I don’t want people getting carried away because I know it’s a great run at the moment but, really proud of the boys, some super defending and what a goal to finish it.
“Defensively we were absolute resolute, we changed shape to combat what Port Vale bring and the boys were excellent.”
Ainsworth admitted they had to soak it up a bit in the first half before getting at the home side more in the second. The plan worked. When Rowe hit the opener, Vale piled men forward in search of a way back into the game, but the Gills stood firm.
He said: “It was a very, very solid and resilient performance and when you’re playing with Jimmy-Jay Morgan up front and Asher (Agbinone) and Aaron Rowe, your long ball game goes out the window. They’re not going to hold it up, it’s going to come back, so we had to play and we were brave in the play.
“First half we didn’t have the ball. I told the boys they won’t have the ball, we’re going to Port Vale and if we try and chase that ball they’re on a real high, they’ve just been promoted, they’re going to pass it around you, they’re going to play with confidence.
“We could have been better at holding the ball up first half. It kept coming back a little bit too easy and there were a couple of hairy moments, especially the one when we played the lad onside, but after that I think chances were few and far between, which they have been since I’ve come in.
“We couldn’t leave any gaps, so we sat deep a little bit (first half) and went ‘right, okay, have your moment, have your 45 and let the crowd and let everything settle down’ and then at half time we made just a couple of tweaks, nothing major but a couple.
“We put a bit of a higher press on them, got our midfield off our defenders’ toes a little bit and went at them a little bit and I thought we started making a nervy. They were passing it out of play, they were not finding each other the way they were, they started going long and we dealt with that.
“The goal comes and then they chucked everything at us and it was a brilliant thing to see that in those hairy moments we had good defenders, put some cracking tackles and some cracking blocks in there.
“We really limited chances in the opposition and that’s against a very good side, second in the league and they could have gone up as champions.”
