Gillingham boss Gareth Ainsworth welcomed a much-improved home showing but isn’t getting carried away with their Easter Monday win over Accrington.
A 2-0 victory over another side with little to play for this season did end Gillingham’s six-game winless run and it was their first home victory in their last six outings at Priestfield.
Report: Gillingham 2 Accrington 0
Goals from Andy Smith and Garath McCleary, either side of the break, finally brought them some home joy.
Ainsworth said: “I’m not going to hide. We haven’t been great at times. I think there’s a bit of pressure. I think over the years, this club has been guilty of not performing at home really well and for one reason or another, we’ve got to address that. We have to make that work.
“I can look at it and go, ‘I know why’ and that’s really good as a manager. When there’s reasons and they’re not all just bad footballing reasons. There’s other reasons around that.
“We’ll do our absolute utmost to get this right next year. We’ve beaten Accrington at home. We’re not going to get carried away with that because although they’re sitting around us in the league, I believe we should be winning games at home.
“We’re Gillingham, this is Priestfield. I love this place. We’re a good club in this league, and we should be winning our home games.”
He added: “Thank you fans for staying with us and thanks for the cheers.”
Accrington have struggled in front of goal themselves and didn’t look like scoring at Priestfield. They didn’t have a shot on target.
Smith headed in the opener from a corner and nearly made it two, but had another effort cleared off the line. McCleary doubled the lead with a shot from the edge of the box.
“That was a lot more like us, which is great,” said the Gills boss.
“I don’t want to get carried away with the one win, but I’ve been saying about the players who’ve been missing and I stand by that, when we’ve got injured players, it’s hard, it’s hard to put a team together.”
Ainsworth still has a handful of experienced players missing and captain Armani Little picked up a nasty hand injury in Monday’s win.
The Gills boss said: “It was a great performance, still some stuff to work on without a doubt, but to win at home was a big thing and I think the fans have had a great Easter and turned out well for us.
“We’ve had some new faces, Louie Dayal from the youth team, the next one to come through and make his debut.
“Lots of positives, still changes to be made without a shadow of a doubt, that’s definitely going to happen, but I’m hoping that people have that feeling like we were in earlier in the season and when I first came in. That was good.
“Remeao and Clarky again, really good performances, this solid defensive shape and [goalkeeper] Glenn Morris keeping a clean sheet is always nice to see. I do work a lot on that and they were solid.
“There were times when Accrington looked like they’d get away and then we’d stop them. We’d recover really well.
“The people in front of the back four are the ones doing all the running, doing all the closing. Unsung heroes like Ronan Hale. He worked his socks off with one up front against two centre-halves. It’s hard to do, doesn’t get a lot of reward for it, but works his socks off, team performance. Seb [Palmer-Houlden], absolutely everywhere.
“Nelson Khumbeni, what a couple of games he’s had and that’s what I want to see from Nelson. I think he’s been great and Armani back as captain.
“GMac in a little different position and Lenni Cirino getting a chance on the wing. Lots went well and I’m really pleased with a 2-0 win, which I thought we deserved.
“Real good positives [but I do] expect more. Expect more from Lenni on the wing. I need more from him. I need more from some of the attacking players.
“I think we can really hurt teams at times, and that final pass and some of the throw-ins, we looked a little bit devoid of ideas sometimes and we’ve got to be better at those things.
“But on the whole, to play like we did and not let them have a shot on target and take the game to them like we did, I thought was really good. The boys have done really well and I’ll protect them. I’ve got their backs. They gave everything. I’ll have them all day.”
