Gillingham FC Forum

A tough game for us at Port Vale on Saturday.We won there last season,but I would take a draw up there.Port Vale had an impressive 0-3 win at Crawley on Tuesday,and will be full of confidence.What Team would you play?

I wondered a while back whether a "Premier League" style formation actually suited the type of players we had and Peter Taylor tried it on Tuesday. So I would give it another go and give McDonald another chance:

.......................Nelson
Harriman......Legge......Barrett......Martin
...............Lee......Gregory or Hollands
Whelpdale........Kedwell..........Weston
.....................McDonald

Whelps and Weston was able to get forward more to make a front 3 with Gregory & Hollands staying back and with Kedwell's strength and ability to break up and create play replacing Lee in the middle, I think McDonald would get the chances to bang in the goals.

Dont get why anyone would have Kedwell in the midfield? Kedwell has been told by Taylor to stay in the middle up top and not chase so much and its been rewarded with 2 goals in successive games!

Is Rooney a midfielder? Plays the same role for Man Utd and England!

The reason he has been told to stay up top was because Taylor clearly thinks McDonald is out of form and Kedwell is the form striker. That formation might not only get the best out of Cody but also give us more strength in midfield when we don't have the ball - that is Kedwell's strength after all and not being a prolific striker. If we want to move up the table that means playing to our strengths and getting more out of Cody, not leave him on the bench!

I've not been a great admirer of Keds in the past couple of seasons, but under Taylor he is starting to look like a striker. I suspect the main reason he hasn't been as prolific with us as we expected,is because he's been chasing the ball all over the pitch. MA said earlier this season,that Kedwell headed more balls out of defence than anyone else. With all due respect, that shouldn't be his job and he can't score from back there. It appears Taylor has told him to play like a proper centre forward,and be up front,scoring goals. If the last couple of games are anything to go by,it seems to be working. I hope though,that the manager can fit Cody in somewhere,because to me he seems a better finisher,but he's not had that much chance to prove it this season for whatever reason. Has he been allowed to complete 90 minutes this season?

Against Preston Cody looked very ineffective to be honest. I think if the new style was kept he would see a lot more of the ball. Definitely Martin Allen's more defensive strategy hindered Kedwell's play and also Whelpdale's who now suddenly looks the player of old. Daft really as it just helped to stop us from scoring the odd goal that might have won a match. To start off we were scoring at free will until he tried to stop us conceding!