Alex Neil was not surprised by Gillingham’s negative tactics and felt that his players were prepared for it. Despite a boring game it all worked out OK thanks to stoppage-time winner from Nathan Broadhead which sees us back into the play-off places…
PREP
“I was telling the lads all week it was going to be hard to break them down. I wanted to use the sessions to get them used to frustration. I set the other team up in a bank of ten, and said, ‘Right, we need to break them down’. What happens in training is that players want to play, score, cut inside and do all the nice things. When you set a bank of ten behind the ball, it’s really frustrating for your forward players. I’ve replicated that pretty much every day this week, and they’ve been extremely frustrated. What I’ve then said is, ‘That’s what’s coming, don’t get frustrated because you need to keep committing to the process and eventually you will break it down’. Thankfully, we did. It made that message not untrue. It’s another confirmation in their head that what I’m telling them is not a load of rubbish. So, that’s helpful.”
EXPECTATION
“In my opinion, this job is not for an inexperienced manager. If you come into something this size, with the expectation it carries, then I think experience is absolutely crucial. What I lean on at the moment, when I’m still learning and picking things up, is that I’ve been here before in different scenarios. I’ve been here with different clubs, I’ve been here with different expectations, and I know what it looks like to get out of a league. I know what it looks like to create a winning team in a really short space of time. That’s what I’m trying to do at the moment.”
TACTICS
"The two full backs were the spare players in the game, which is why I changed the shape. We went with the experience of Corry and Danny in those central areas. What I've done [previously] is plug that gap behind the ball with pace, but I didn't want that extra [defensive] player today. The experience we went with worked well because we needed that aerial presence from throw ins, corners; that was how I saw them scoring a goal.
SUBS
"We brought Goochy on and he hit the byline three, four times quickly, which Winchy wasn't able to do as much as the game went on as he was tiring. Embo then produces that moment of quality we needed, and Broadhead gets on the end of it. That's probably the third or fourth time the players we have brought on have made an impact, and that's really good heading into the final games of the season.
BROADHEAD
"I spoke to Nathan yesterday and asked if he felt he could start, and he felt maybe bedding him in with 30,40 minutes might be better. He had a very good 30 minutes, so that was pleasing. Today's game was going to be about being big, strong, aggressive. Danny hadn't played a lot of football and I felt that if we needed to replace him, I needed the likes of Arby [Xhemajli] who can go and win the aerial battle, I think he's a bit more equipped for that than Callum. If it's about building, stepping in from the back and breaking the lines, Callum naturally is one of the best we've got.”
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