Gillingham first-team coach Nicky Southall writes exclusively for the KM Group
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We’ve got a good game to look forward to this weekend, just a
week after a great performance against Stoke in the FA Cup.
We travel to a Shrewsbury side who, like us, have aspirations of
promotion from League 2 this season.
It’s an away game but we’ve recently been to Crawley and beat
them, so we have no fears about going to Shrewsbury.
The pitch is big and that means we will have a bit more space.
Priestfield can be quite tight but with the open spaces of the
Shrewsbury pitch, we can maybe get in those runners from midfield
and cause them problems.
We head into the game with plenty of confidence after our
display against Stoke.
They showed us a lot of respect with the team they put out.
Apart from Peter Crouch and Matthew Etherington, it was pretty much
the strongest team they had available.
We had a right good go and were in the dressing room at
half-time a little deflated as we couldn’t believe we were losing
2-1.
They were all about set pieces and were physically strong. They
have that weapon with the long throw and use if effectively.
We were disappointed with the first goal and I know Ross was
beating himself up a bit about it after the game.
He thought Jon Walters was going to hit it further into the
corner and he ended up diving over it.
I know Jon quite well and he said it ended up coming off his
heel and it went in. Those old scuffers do normally go in.
All credit to the boys and the fans, who were magnificent. They
made it a real carnival atmosphere at times, especially when that
first goal went in.
You could hear the press sharpening their pencils when Kedwell
scored his goal. He has 11 goals now and that’s pretty good
considering he started the season playing up front by himself.
Unfortunately, he didn’t finish the game as he cracked a
rib.
I have had that injury before and it is like a knife going into
your stomach every time you move. It may mean we need to give Keds
a rest but knowing him, he won’t want to. We will wait and see how
he feels.
It has to be down to the player and it’s about what kind of pain
threshold you can hold and what pain killers we can get into
him.
I am not sure what they were feeding him in the week but he was
floating around that dressing room in a bit of a daze.
Thursday, January 12 2012
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