Gillingham’s captain Armani Little is eyeing successive home games as a platform to get their season back on track.
In the past two seasons, the Gills have fallen away from the promotion race after positive starts, and the same is on the cards this time around, unless the form can be turned around.
The Gills were beaten 2-1 at Fleetwood on Saturday and have won just one League 2 game in their last 12 outings. That’s in contrast to winning six of their first nine this season.
Gillingham will sit 12th place in the table at Christmas, five points off the play-off places, but Little remains confident that this season has still got plenty left in it.
Looking ahead to home games against Cambridge United (Boxing Day) and Colchester United (December 29), the Gills skipper said: “We’re going (into the games) with a fire in our belly.
“We have to win now. That’s it. If we can get a few wins over the Christmas break and build up a little run, it’s there for us second half of the season and we’ll be coming on strong.”
The Gills were well backed again at Fleetwood, in the last weekend before Christmas, but after a positive first half where they led through Bradley Dack, the hosts turned it around to win.
“They’ve been brilliant all season,” said the captain, speaking about the support.
“They’ve backed us again in numbers, especially around Christmas.
“It was a long way to com, we’ll repay them hopefully in the next two home games.”
In a message to fans, he added: “Just stick with us and I’m sure we’ll change it.
“Come in numbers, come loud, and we’ll give a good performance for it.”
Little knows they weren’t good enough in the second half against Fleetwood and will be working hard on being better at both ends of the pitch.
He said: “No one likes losing. It was like similar to (the previous) week. We have to take our chances when we’re on top.
“First half we played pretty well, but we need more goals. We’ll be working on that in training and hopefully that will come in games to come.
“I think in any game of football, you’re going to have to spells we’re under pressure. So we need to be better at riding things out and trying to take their momentum out of the game and working on things like that.
“We’ve got a busy, busy period over Christmas. So there’s a few games now. We’ve got two home games back-to-back, so they’re must-wins now.
“We have to take the game to the two teams that we’re playing. The league is tight and a few wins will get you right back in the mix again.”
