Oldham (A)

[Kent_UckyFriedGills]

With the Sheffield Utd game being played on Wednesday Night,there is not much time in between games this week as we Travel to Oldham on Saturday.Last nights performance overall was poor,and hopefully that was down to rustiness after 10 days off.Oldham sit four places below us in 16th place on 34 points,with a game in hand over us.Our last win at Oldham came in April 2000.Hopefully once again we can continue the Win,Lose,Win sequence and get an important win at a Rival in the League.But a draw would be a good result aswell.

Team? Inniss will miss the game with his hamstring injury,Hewitt should return to the side after illness,Harriman should start on the right in place of Smith.I think we will start Pigott instead of Bayo after Bayo played 90 minutes yesterday.

Nelson
Hewitt,Legge,Barrett,Martin
Gregory
Harriman,Linganzi,Dack
Pigott,McDonald

Subs:Baxter,Davies,Hessenthaler,Smith,Weston,Fagan,Akinfenwa

[gillsfan1066]

Big 3 points if we can get it but I suppose realistically should be happy to come away with a point. Rusty after 10 days off, is that football speak for pi** poor, lol, better not give them any time off over the summer we won't get a win till Christmas next season, lol.

[Kent_UckyFriedGills]

I wasn`t at the game,nor did I listen to the game as I took the kids to the Cinema.My Mate says we played well and the stats show we had more chances.It looks like we deserved something from the game,but its a shame we had to end the sequence with a defeat.I was surprised to see Cody did not start,but Taylor has said in his post match interview that he was tired.Some of the results have not gone for us,and when you lose two on the bounce you can get dragged back in.We have a 6 point gap between us and Bristol City,so hopefully we can get something over there next week.I have seen some comments about people not wanting Taylor,but he has turned us around and we`re still on course to reach safety.

[Robpthegills]

I am struggling with this a bit. The players have just had an extra long break before the rearranged sheff utd game, but someone is tired. After 1 game in about 10 days he is tired.

The guy has been on scoring form, we should have kept him playing.

Oh well its all about opinions

[Kent_UckyFriedGills]

That comment from Taylor does seem strange,seeing as Sheffield Utd have played three times in a week.Also Cody played games in all over Christmas and there was no mention of tiredness then.

[gillsfan1066]

I think if Taylor is here next year we will be sitting in the bottom half of the table come the end of February , just like this year . Don't know who the hell you bring in, someone from the Blue Square that just misses promotion, someone from the Championship that ends up in the bottom 5 or 6 and gets fired because he had no money to spend on players, buggered if I know ?
I honestly think Mr. Scally needs to make a decision.
A) Put up the cash and bring the players in who can make a serious run at promotion.
B) Sell the Club.
C) Tell the World he is happy with GFC bouncing between the 3rd and 4th Divisions, and always will be, and let us all go off and start supporting Crystal Palace or West Ham or who ever, because man is this all getting a bit long in the tooth after all these years.

[Garawa]

If you disregard performances and look solely at actual results then Taylor has done very well indeed. I don't understand this issue of tiredness, players from all nations in all divisions are suddenly tired when teams are rotated more than they have ever been in the past. There are players in the side who have played many more minutes (some having played every single one) so are they not tired? What about the other 5 players that were dropped, were they tired as well?

The consensus was that there was a bug in the week and that players may have caught it hence the changes. Even if that wasn't wasn't the case it would have made for a better reason that one player being tired.

[Rimshot]

It's a funny thing with Scally's control of the club. I always felt part of GFC, even when I moved away from Medway; getting the chance to go back to the ground I felt at home. Scally has never really pulled that off; too much of what he does is entirely selfish, too much effort is devoted to his personal income.
I go to GFC games infrequently now and when I do it's almost as if it's not 'my' club any more.

[gillsfan1066]

Garawa how can you say Taylor has done very well indeed, I think since Allen left after what was it 10 games Gillingham have gone something like 9-2-11 (don't quote me on those number but I am sure it was something like that) and you say he has done very well indeed ?
Martin Allen did very well indeed last season, Taylor has done a fairly poor job in my opinion, he seems unable to get the team "up" for games, especially against the teams lower in the table than us, and they might well come back to haunt us before this season is over.
I admit I don't understand GFC, Allen takes them to a top place finish in the table, Division Manager of the Year, goes and lays on the beach In Benidorm for a couple of weeks , comes home and he has completely forgotten how to manage , still does not make sense to me.
I think providing we stay in Division One and I think we will although mainly due to the teams below us being worse than we are , rather than us being able to pull up our boot straps and do it off our own backs ,we need to clean house, new manager, new players, and Scally needs to spend some money.
I know it's easy for me to sit here and say ,it's not my money, but realistically being in the Championship will drive the gates up to 9 or 10 thousand for home games, the TV revenue must be worth 5 or 6 million a year Sky over here has games on every week, so I can not help thinking that as a business man Scally must be able to see the advantage of getting out of this division into the Championship and staying there, but perhaps he doesn't. ?
I honestly believe with the rite blend of youth and old heads on the pitch this is not the hardest division to get out of, (unlike the Championship) two or three more wins a draw or two and we could be up there fighting for a spot in the playoffs and anything can happen in those games as we well know.

[Garawa]

Put simply Gillsfan, based solely on results and nothing else, Martin Allen's win percentage in the league this season was 18.1%. Peter Taylor's stands at 40.1% which over the course of a 46 game season would accrue 57 points WITHOUT including the draws! That is a total I would have been more than happy with given that realistically it would be up in the 60s and comfortable mid-table, that has to be a good job. This win percentage is better than Southampton's (a side many are waxing lyrical about) so he must be doing the job required.

There were MANY problems behind the scenes under Martin Allen, from the very start there were moments and it sounded like he spent money on anything and everything until he was told enough was enough. I witnessed part of it myself. Radical ideas are fine for a short period but quickly wear thin. Once players have had enough of being dragged out of bed at 5 in the morning and told to do 3 training sessions a day only to be told they won't be playing for a while, it leaves his position untenable. Frankly it was always going to end that way and it was better to make the change before it was too big a gap to overcome.

[gillsfan1066]

I guess if your a Gillingham supporter who is going to be happy finishing in 17th or 18th spot this year after a magical last season and actually believes were adjusting to playing at a higher level, believes we going to build a team and push for promotion in a year or two then I guess you have to be a happy camper.
Wish you had been my Dad when I was at school, you would have been happy with a couple of B's , a few C+'s and an A in gym. Lets all be Mr. Average I guess, average job, average team, average car, average salary, average house, lets not rock the boat and ask for anything above average, lol.

[Elgrande]

A 40% win ratio is pretty good 1066 and to be fair I think he inherited a disillusioned squad. As for the Championship. Our first visit gave us average gates of less than 8,000 and wages went up season upon season. The average wage in the Championship would make it very difficult with our gates / income as it is a very different league to the one we got promoted to all those years ago. Teams with average gates twice that of ours still struggle to be at the top and the parachute payments are now much bigger.

[gillsfan1066]

We have got 39 points to play for this season and with the way Taylors team is playing I think we will be lucky to pick up more than 10 or 12 of them, I think we will be stretched to reach the 50 point mark and I hope to God I am completely wrong, but I see this as the most difficult bit of the season starting after the BC game this weekend.
Taylor reminds me of Moyes at Manchester United, hasn't got the gooleys to pull someone off when they out there going through the motions, wants to take the blame for everything and not rock the boat, strings attached to the board room and him dancing like a little puppet on the side lines.
I am sure you are right , your a lot closer to the "action" than I am, ( actualy your a lot nearer to God every home game than I am, up on the roof looking down) but there is a reason he has been at 13 /14 clubs in 20 something years and really only ever had any major success at Hull, not all of those board of directors can be wrong, he rarely makes it past the two year mark before he is either fired or wanders away.
I think he had a chance to come in and grab this club by the proverbial balls and do something with it, but he didn't, as far as I am concerned I don't really care if he goes or stays
By now I am completely programmed to answer, oh a small club called Gillingham , you would have never heard of them ,they have bounce between the 1st and 2nd division ( the old 3rd and 4th ) for over a 100 years. No there not in the same league as Manchester City, Yeah I know where Manchester United is, but let me tell you about Gillingham Football Club, they won the ,Chelsea yeah I have seen games at Stamford Bridge , but let me tell you about Gilling....YES I know how f*****g good Arsenal are ...... OK look officer , I was provoked ok , I didn't mean to hit the guy and anyway he looks a lot younger than 87 and before the ambulance took him away I apologized , so take the cuffs off OK. ?

[gillsfan1066]

Give me a shout at the end of the season and let me know what his winning percentage is then, see if it is as good as MA's last season, and I am not a M A should not have been fired guy , believe me from the bottom of my heart I hope it is going to be 60%. I would love us to be up there in the top ten if not the top 7 come May.
Elgrande I don't understand why GFC can not pull a crowd, I look at Brighton drawing 25, 26, 27000, BRIGHTON, I never knew a stadium could have that much room for wheel chairs for all the old folk, lol, then you look at Bournmouth just along the road , 9,000, you tell me ??
Kent's population almost 2 million ,6th biggest county in the country , no competition, and we draw 6,000, yet we take 30,000 ++++ to Wembley, a God forsaken place to get to.
I believe a marketing company should be bought in, no skip that I will give the info for free, success on the field = money through the turnstiles. Still what the hell do I know about the silly game, lol, into Ice Hockey and the mighty Blackhawks, and our footie season is just starting, if they can clear the foot of ice off the pitch and the 5 inches of snow supposedly coming this weekend, which finally GOT me today, took one mighty dive onto a gravel section of the road, only place for miles where there was no snow, just stones and gravel,and a patch of ice I swear did a studs up slide tackle to bring me down, been picking grit out of my cut up hands all afternoon.

[Garawa]

Well it certainly won't be near Martin Allen's win percentage of last season as that would guarantee a play-off spot at least. As most people thought just staying in the league this season was an achievement then Peter Taylor averaging around about the 65 point mark would have put us 12th in last season's table. You must be a hard man to please if that is unacceptable! Unfortunately we were so far behind when he took over that it doesn't stand out at all.

People don't come because they can't be bothered, it is as simple as that. Parking plays a massive part and ticket prices to a degree also but the demand (despite huge potential) isn't there. We didn't exactly sell out twice over when we had a chance to celebrate a title or is a League 2 trophy not worthy of interest? A new stadium will help, people will want to come to a new ground. Keeping them coming is the hard part.

Should we get to the Championship there would be a gate increase but not as much as you think. I would envisage that would then drop off WHEN we lose a few games on the bounce so it's a no-win situation really. The only alternative is with heavy investment to make it financially attractive to come originally and then ensure we keep them wanting to come via a mixture of success and cost/convenience but a club of our size couldn't manage it. If it was that simple everyone would be able to do and I can only name Brighton and (now) Rotherham that look like managing it (clubs considerably bigger than us).