Gills boss believes team have showed good consistency
Martin Allen believes his players have not had a single run of bad form in the nine months that he has been in charge.
The Gills have accumulated 79 points from 42 league games to date, with an average of 1.9 points per match, and have won over half of their league fixtures.
Martin said: “People have said that we have had bad runs. I haven’t seen a bad run. When we haven’t played well we’ve only lost 1-0. When we haven’t put a great run together we’ve been drawing.
“Someone said `our first win in five` the other day. Well, we’ve had three games in a week away from home and couldn’t have travelled any further around the world to play some of the games that we’ve had.
“The players just keep picking up points, they just keep going. They’re relentless, they’re fit, they’re thirsty, they’re hungry, and the drive within the dressing room, not only from the senior players, but now the young players is fantastic.”
Gills could achieve promotion this weekend if results go their way, and Martin admits it’s a surreal feeling from his perspective.
He added: “I’ve never had it [the feeling of promotion]. Not in 17 years. 17 years I’ve worked on this, so it’s amazing - it’s quite surreal for me personally, we’ve been top of the league all but two weeks of the season which is quite an amazing feat.
“I’ve had promotions as a player – manager wise I’ve taken over clubs that are at the bottom of the league, looking like they were going to get relegated, and I’ve been able to make teams in to play-off teams the following year, which is the way I’ve been.
“If you look back at it, it is a pretty good achievement in itself. I was twice in the play-offs with Brentford, once in the play-offs at Reading when I was coach, once while at MK Dons and I left to go to Leicester in the Championship.
“Barnet, well, we all know my role of bending and twisting things there to get players to play better and to stay up on the last day. Notts County, stayed up on the last day and had the team up in the play-offs.
“So to come here and be top of the league for the whole season, I’ve never known anything like it.”
The players were given a couple of days rest earlier in the week after a busy Easter schedule, but Martin says nothing has changed in terms of how they prepare for Torquay on Saturday.
He said: “All of the players have had a couple of days off after a busy Easter period. We played the game up there [in Fleetwood], got back in to Gillingham very late on Saturday.
“So we gave the players two days off, and we have them back in now, Thursday and Friday, to train for this game and we will continue to do what we have done all the way through the season.
“We won’t be talking about records or talking about what we can do, we will talk about what we will do and we will practice what we have done all through the season.
“It sounds a bit boring but that’s the only process that I know will work.”
To watch Martin's pre-match press conference click here.