Gillingham FC Forum

Before kick-off I would have happily took a draw. Brentford, a side still hurting from "losing" the title with seconds of the season to go and then the play-off final, looked to avenge that pain by purchasing the services of Will Grigg from Walsall to give them two of the top three goalscorers in League 1 last season with Clayton Donaldson. They are a solid League 1 outfit, possibly more so than Wolves, and was a very tricky game.

In much the same way the Colchester game went, the visitors had the better of the play and looked more dangerous and we possibly had the better chances. The difference this time however was that we more than competed and do that every week and it should be a good season even though the referee did his best to destroy the match. The ref blew for 13 Gills fouls by half time, a figure we hadn't conceded more of after 90 minutes in the previous 12 games. Some of them were so innocuous such as a slight brush of the hand by Bayo that impeded nobody and yet Harriman and a defender virtually wrestled each other to the ground to get to the ball with nothing given. Kedwell had arms around his chest and was pulled back and was judges to have done the fouling and, even worse, right by the dugout Charlie Lee had a leg around his groin area and pushed from behind with the ball yards away right in front the linesman sparking furious protests after nothing had been given!

With the visitors hitting the post twice in the second half, I should be happy with a draw really. But again the ref took centre stage. Allocating a dubious 4 minutes of added time (there wasn't a lot of injuries and not all subs were used with Brentford changing one in the first half) Brentford scored the equaliser with a little under 5 extra minutes on the clock.

That certainly felt as good as a defeat, it could be worse, we could be Carlisle who lost their home games 1-5 and 0-4! But when are we going to see refereeing that is actually not biased towards the visitors??? Is it just my bias or are we not getting the decisions and the standard of refereeing isn't any better in League 1??? Thoughts?

The first point towards the 89 to finish in the top 2

Good optimism guys but I think it's time to start getting re-connected with reality. The simple truth is we've been outplayed every time we've been on the park and that include a first team outfit at Woking pre-season.

I do agree with that view taking into account a woeful pre-season where strong sides we sent out left empty handed. However I don't feel that we were totally outplayed by Colchester or Brentford just much more creative than what we are used to and that's what we looked forward to. Both those sides had chances to win by a couple but then we weren't far off either.

I get a bit annoyed of soundbites from the club saying they are aiming for play-offs as it would be disastrous were we to go up. I also get annoyed about comments saying finishing 20th would be good as that sounds like another relegation scrap. Mid-table is fine and more perfomanaces like we saw against Colchester & Brentford should see that secured.

What worries me is that our assistant manager stated the Lads played brilliantly.

Hmmm in 94 minutes of football we only managed 3 shots at goal according to the stats. That doesn't sound brilliant to me.

At half time when we were leading 1 0 I said to my friend I would take 1 1 if offered it now as we were being outclassed.

As it happens we played better the 2nd half, but overall outclassed again. We just need to make sure we pick up points against weaker teams
and we will stay up, we are not in the same league as the top half teams at the moment.

That said, some good training and maybe we will pick up some points against Swindon

WE ARE GOING UP, WE ARE GOING UP

But would you want to Mark? I don't think we are geared up for a sustained challenge on League 1 let alone the Championship, I don't think I would enjoy a season getting trounced every game!

There is a massive difference in the second tier since we last played there. Jenas and Wright-Phillips not long ago would have been England players and the more foreigners that come into the game then far better players will be plying their trade in the Championship and with sides with far greater parachute payments too. If £9m Kevin Doyle isn't snapped up then even some of that disparity is coming down the leagues.

It's not negative but the gap between the haves and the have nots is getting bigger and into our "neck of the woods" as well.

Of course I would want us to go up! What do you expect me to say?

I think I would prefer to build for the future in League One than flirt with a short spell in the Championship before suffering years of enduring League Two again!

Don't know what you guys are smoking, going up , lol, hell we will be lucky to avoid relegation. I have read things like we expected the first four games of the season to be tough, well can someone tell me when the games become "not tough" ? Don't worry I have found the answer, the two easy games for this year, Carlisle on November 2nd and Stevenage on Nov26th, two home wins for sure looking at the current table.
We had two , *******count them ,TWO shots on goal last Saturday, could be relegated with the fewest points ever and sure as hell the fewest shots on goal.
Do I think MA has forgotten how to manage over the summer vacation, NO, do I think we have a team that could possibly even remotely challenge for promotion, NO, do I think that we are completely being outclassed because the wrong players are on the field for GFC ......YES, do I think the owner and manager can do something about it..........................? Is Tony Pulis employed with QPR at the moment lol ?
The time to act is now Mr. Scally, don't wait another day, we need a goal scorer TODAY, and there are plenty of out of contract players out there waiting for a second chance, give it to them now, not at the start of the new year when it may all be far to late.

Gillsfan, a rant I can agree with ! What's happening now is exactly the same syndrome as we saw with previous post-promotional seasons, with little or no attempt to strengthen the squad and new players ( recycled) brought in on 'frees'. No doubt the extra revenues delivered through promotion will be reflected in consultancy fees and bonuses though.

The money received for promotion is derisory and is offset by the increase in wages. If anyone expects to compete with the top half of the league with home gates of less than 6,500 against Brentford. We bought and signed to get promotion and now everyone wants the club to spend to consolidate and then no doubt spend to get promoted. Clubs with similar gates as ours spend less than us and still do Ok. We are now at our historic level in the league and a couple of seasons of consolidation will be a positive instead of everyone wanting Championship football again. When we got promoted 13 years ago the championship was a different place to what it is now. You have 6 / 8 teams with parachute payments greater than our total gate receipts for the last 10 seasons plus probably another 8 teams who average almost double ours. League 1 has teams that have players of championship experience (and wages) and teams that if doing well will get gates of 18 - 20 thousand.
We have to look at the future with realism and support the team when things are a bit difficult, not just when we are flying.

I think you're pretty well spot on ElG. Reading some of the other contributions on this thread I would also agree they are pretty close. However, even though the performances haven't been exactly what we wanted I would expect management to support the team in public but maybe with some caveats thrown in

The additional money isn't derisory to a league1/2 side and neither is the revenue from the additional ticket sales etc. I'm not suggesting its a fortune but it's well worth having. It appears to me our wage bill is probably less than last season, for example Akinfenwa and Mcdonald both needing clubs rather than the other way round.

Promotion to League 1 is generally assessed as having a value of £1million, including the league payment of just under £400,000. When you consider that the average wage bill for a league 2 side is around £1.1million you can see what a difference that makes.

Ambition and realism don't have to be mutually exclusive. Both are better than defeatism

I am happy with consolidation this season. I said it at the start of the season.

Cadbury, Yes I do agree the management have to be positive in public, but there is being positive and just sounding foolish. We were not brilliant. If he had said there was some real positives in the second half, or we battled well, ultimately but for a late goal we would have won then Yes I can see the positivity.

Bit like Pardew saying Newcastle lost to man city because arsenal had made a late bid for cabaye....I thought it was because Man city played them off the park and Newcastle haven't made any signings.

I am quite happy with mid table, in fact I will be overjoyed at mid table, but it is a simple fact that if you step up a division you need to improve the team. In my opinion we have weakened the team. Jack Payne is gone (our best ball player) and Akinfenwa has replaced Burton..... its just my opinion but that has weakened the team.

My man of the match against Brentford was Charlie Lee and he is transfer listed.

A result against Swindon will be good. We are only 3 games into the season so there is definitely no need to panic, far from it. I think we saw enough in the 2nd half against Brentford to see that if we beat the teams similar to us then we will stay up. That will make me happy.