Gillingham assistant manager John Schofield writes exclusively for the KM Group
If you were watching last weekend’s game, you probably
wouldn’t have known some of those players were suffering with a
stomach bug.
A few of the lads had a bit of it but they are desperate to play
and they proved that on Saturday. It’s all credit to the players
and their mental state. These things do happen unfortunately
sometimes but what it does, it focuses you and you might need to
concentrate a bit more.
You find that on those days you jump out of bed feeling great
you probably don’t play as well as you do when you haven’t had a
good night’s sleep because you think ‘I feel great, it’s just going
to happen for me today’.
Not that we are going to try and make them ill every week! When
these things happen, we have things in place to ensure players
recover as quickly as possible. That is about being organised.
Luckily, I have got a proper Northern stomach, not like these
Southerners!
Sometimes this year we have started games bright and on
Saturday, against Aldershot, it was no exception.
The first half was great and we looked a threat when we were in
possession, as well as when we were out of possession. Every time
we won the ball back, we looked like hitting them on the
counter-attack.
Myles Weston was on his game and it shows what you can do when
you have pace in your side. It is good that we are starting games
quickly and it’s important that when we are starting games like
that, we score the goals.
We went in 3-0 at half-time and the next goal is always big but
we started the second half and kept possession.
After being 3-0 up, people probably think you should go and get
X amount of goals but the main thing is keeping a clean sheet and
if we can add to it then great, which we did.
It will be all about us again this weekend. Yes, of course, we
will be looking at Burton. They are a decent side, move the ball
well and are organised under Gary Rowett. It is going to be another
difficult test but we go into it looking for three points as
always.
The news that former Ajax, AC Milan and Barcelona player
Edgar Davids had joined Barnet as a player-coach caused a stir last
week.
I’m not sure qualification-wise what he has got, it’s probably
not for us to comment what happens at other clubs, but there seems
to be a few there at the minute.
Robbo (Mark Robson) is still there (as manager) and he has got
an assistant. I read that Davids is bringing an assistant in as
well.
But, as we’ve said before, each club to their own. There is no
right or wrong way. So if they think it can work, good luck to
them.
18/10/12
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