Gillingham are eyeing up the automatic promotion places after extending their unbeaten run to five matches with Saturday’s 2-0 win at Accrington.

The Gills sit seventh in League 2, just two points off the third and final automatic promotion spot, and manager Mark Stimson believes Saturday’s win was crucial to keep them in the hunt.

Stimson said: “While it’s there you have to go for it and that’s what the players will do. We mentioned on Saturday for the first time that there’s a chance of automatic promotion if we won.

“We had to win I think to have a really good go and we’ve done that. If we didn’t win at Accrington, we would have been a few points off those teams in front of us but we’ve stayed in the same position and we’ll look forward to two games at home.”

Gillingham’s next two games are against fellow promotion hopefuls Darlington on Tuesday and Shrewsbury on Saturday.