Gillingham head coach Stephen Clemence has played down coming up against friend Johnnie Jackson at AFC Wimbledon.

Clemence and Jackson are in charge of the respective play-off chasing League 2 sides, as they lock horns at Plough Lane tonight (kick-off 7.45pm) with only one point and one place separating seventh-placed Gills and the hosts.

But friendships will be put to one side once the competitive action starts.

On facing Jackson, Clemence said: “It doesn’t make any difference to me. I’ll be going there to try and win, he will be trying to beat me. It is what it is.

“Obviously, there’s all these things that go on in football where relationships cross and where you come across old colleagues or friends. But, once you cross that white line, it’s about trying to get three points.

“I’ll be trying to do my best for Gillingham.”

Both began their football careers at Tottenham although, with Clemence four years older than Jackson, they didn’t often cross paths in those early days together in London.

Report: Gillingham 1-1 Tranmere

“It’ll mean something more to me”

“I trained with him a little bit,” the 45-year-old Gills head coach revealed. “I never trained in the first team with him because I was a little bit ahead of him.

“But I definitely played reserve football with him when he was coming through. We’re good friends.

“I went to the Liverpool v Chelsea game for the League Cup Final, and he was there. I bumped into him and we had a chat.

“He’s a friend.”

While a 1-1 weekend draw against Tranmere at Priestfield extended the Gills’ unbeaten home league record to seven fixtures, they have been beaten in three of seven games on the road in 2024.

But Clemence insisted: “I don’t think we have been too bad away from home since Christmas. We haven’t won every game, of course, we have lost three.

“We have had some really good results on the road, too. I was disappointed to lose (2-0) at Barrow last week. You don’t want to lose to someone who is a rival and challenging for those play-off spots but it happened.

“One thing for certain is we probably won’t win every game between now and the end of the season.

“But we have got to make sure that we’re in with a shout with four or five games to go.”

Clemence reverted to a back four at half-time against Tranmere which led to a much-improved second-half performance, with defender Conor Masterson equalising on 83 minutes before midfielder Tim Dieng had a stoppage-time winner ruled out for handball.

Asked if he will use a four-man backline again before the end of the campaign, the boss replied: “I’m sure I will.

“I’m not sure what I’ll do on Tuesday yet - but I’m sure I will. I came in here playing a back four, I’ve moved to a back three maybe six or seven weeks into my time here, and I’ve played that ever since. I’m not afraid of ever changing the system.

“That’s my job to design a system, with the players that I’ve got, which enables us to win games of football. That’s what I’ll keep trying to do.”

Connor Mahoney caught the eye after the restart in front of a crowd of 6,077 and the Huddersfield loanee winger, 27, will hope to have forced his way back into Clemence’s reckoning for a starting berth at AFC Wimbledon.

“Connor has been unlucky,” Clemence explained. “I really rate Connor highly as a player.

“But I think, with the change of system around Christmas-time, it’s not been easy to get him into it - and that system has served us quite well. We have been on a fairly decent run and we haven’t been beaten at home this year in the league. So, we have been doing okay.

“But it’s how we fit certain players into that system and fit them in together, and that doesn’t always work for me. Obviously, with the change of system, Connor was in his more natural position on the right-hand side.

“He looked a really quality player when he came on, on Saturday, and he really helped the team.”