Gillingham first-team coach Nicky Southall writes exclusively for the KM Group
08:00, 25 November 2011
We head into the final game of the month, against Bradford, hoping to hit our maximum points target.
After a great win in the FA Cup on Tuesday and victory at Aldershot last weekend, we just want to keep our momentum going.
We could reach our maximum target with three wins from three in the league but we aren’t going to get ahead of ourselves because nobody is going to come here and hand us the three points.
We just need that effort, commitment and passion again from the players.
Another win will see us maintain our push for those play-off positions and possibly the top three by the end of the year. If we do that, then we can take the momentum into the new year and push on.
On Tuesday, against Bournemouth, we had to make changes but we showed what a good squad we had after a fantastic win to set up a game against Leyton Orient.
Among those coming in was Curtis Weston, playing in that role just behind Danny Kedwell – a position that’s made for him.
He was a thorn in the Bournemouth side all evening and we said afterwards what an electric performance it was from him. It’s so frustrating as we wish he could play like that every week but then if he did he wouldn’t be playing here!
We brought on Dean Rance for his debut late on which was great for him.
We bumped into the Charlton team before Saturday’s match, as we stopped for lunch at the same hotel but were shocked to see the front end of their coach smashed in and the back end of a car which looked written off. Luckily there were no serious injuries, although the driver was shaken up a bit. Their players had to make their way to Brentford by car but it obviously didn’t do them any harm as they won 1-0.
We also got a valuable win and it was fully deserved, especially after the way we played in the first half.
Aldershot came back into the game in the second half but we held out and their manager Dean Holdsworth saif to us afterwards that the better team won and he admired the way we played.
It’s the start of another busy weekend for us and the manager and I start it on Friday with a trip to see Barnet play Macclesfield as we face Macclesfield soon. It’s a busy time for us at the moment but enjoyable and hopefully we keep getting the rewards for the hard work everyone is putting in.