Gillingham captain Armani Little was buzzing to get a new deal at the club and a fresh opportunity to show what he can do.
Little took plenty of flak as the figurehead for an underperforming team, but he hasn’t let that knock his desire to try and bring the good times back at Priestfield.
The 29-year-old midfielder had his contract automatically renewed for another season and said: “I was buzzing to stay here for another year. I just want to put things right.
“When the tough times come, you can’t just walk away, you have to dig in and then when the good times come, they are even better. Let’s just try to put things right next year.
“I’m sure everyone at the club is trying their hardest to do that in every single way. Hopefully, it’s a positive year next season.
“I know the last four or five years haven’t been great. I really like it here. You just want to give the club what it deserves and what the club needs, and that’s a positive season and something for them to cheer about.”
Before the end of the season, Ainsworth was often quizzed on his players’ futures, and was always positive about his captain – in the face of what some others may have thought.
Little said: “When you’ve got the gaffer backing you, there’s nothing more a player wants than that. That’s the most important thing.
“He’s been brilliant with me ever since he came in. I appreciate that a lot. You can’t beat it when a gaffer’s backing you as much as he has with me. It’s a nice feeling.”
Little said he had to be mentally strong when facing criticism after the season went downhill quick.
He said: “It’s difficult, it’s never nice, but it’s all part of football. As a captain, when the club’s not doing too well, a lot of the responsibility comes back to you, because they look straight to the captain.
“You have to be mentally strong and you have to just get through it and keep pushing yourself on, remember why you started playing football and never lose the love for it.
“We’ve given up so much to get to this stage, and the sacrifices and the dedication you have to do to actually become a footballer. I think people don’t always see. Credit to anyone that becomes a professional footballer because it’s not easy.
“You just have to be strong and have a good group around you. When times are tough, that’s when you’ve got to dig in even more. It’s not all roses, is it, playing football? It certainly is a rollercoaster.”
The Gills captain admitted it was an underwhelming season, which boiled down to player performance, but that there were factors involved too.
He said: “We started the season really well, obviously carried on that unbeaten run for the record for the 21 games, which was a huge positive but overall it was a really underwhelming season to be fair.
“We didn’t reach the expectations that we wanted and what everyone probably thought we were going to reach.
“Over 46 games of the season, there’s always going to be highs and lows. To achieve that record, 21 games unbeaten, something that’s going to be remembered. Obviously, that wasn’t the biggest objective that we wanted to do this season but it’s something to be happy about.”
Losing the manager for a period last season didn’t help, with Ainsworth missing while undergoing open heart surgery before tentatively making his return to lead the side.
Little said: “To take a manager away from anyone’s team for six or so weeks, and that’s no disrespect to [assistant manager] Dobbo, but it’s a big part of any team and if you take the gaffer away from any team, it’s going to be difficult for them to stay consistent.
“He’s the most positive man I’ve probably ever met in football.
“When you come in every day, and that’s not there for four to six weeks, or whatever it was, it probably was a big change for the lads. There’s still no excuse, don’t get me wrong, because we’re still playing out there and we still kept to the same plan and structure that we were doing before, but just having his presence not there, it’s big for any team.
“We can’t use that as an excuse, but at the same time it was a big part of it. We also had a list of injuries at a bad time, which didn’t help. I just don’t think we were consistent enough. In the games when it was 0-0 and could have gone either way, at the start of the season, when we were probably winning those ones, we weren’t winning enough of them.
“When you are in a place where you’re not getting the luck of the draw, you’re not winning, it is difficult to turn it around at the time. You see after Christmas we didn’t have the greatest of form, and it was nowhere near good enough, but a lot of us have learned from the season quite a bit.
“We’re having a break now, which is lovely, but you’re out of routine and it does throw you out a little bit. I’ve got a little girl and I think she’s surprised that I’m here every day, she doesn’t really realise what’s happening!
“I hope we can put things right next season and have a really good go at it and give the fans what they want and deserve.”
