Antonio German adds to his pre-season goal tally as Gills defeat non-league Faversham at Salters Lane
Antonio German bagged his fourth goal in as many pre-season matches as Gills cruised to a 6-1 win over Faversham at Salters Lane on Tuesday evening.Luke Norris, Amine Linganzi, Michael Freiter and an own goal from Dave Botterill completed the scoring in an evening where Gills had fallen behind early on courtesy of a Dean Grant goal.
Andy Hessenthaler took charge of proceedings, naming Leon Legge as the skipper with both Gary Borrowdale and Josh Stanford in the starting line-up.
Members of the development squad were on the bench with Freiter, Aiden Blanchard, Dan Bent and Jack Sellens all keen to impress.
However it was Town who did the impressing in the opening exchanges and took the lead on five minutes.
A mistake in midfield allowed Grant to sprint through and he did brilliantly to chip the oncoming Glenn Morris and place the ball in the opposite corner.
They continued to press but Gills began to apply some pressure themselves. German hit the bar via a cross from Josh Hare which the assistant referee flagged for offside shortly before an equalizer was scored.
Bradley Dack swung in a terrific corner from the left hand side and Luke Norris, who was unable to move too much due to being marked, got his foot to the ball first and beat Simon Overland to level up the scores.
German threatened again on 18 minutes; Borrowdale offered a short ball to the striker who took on his marker and then launched a left foot effort narrowly over the crossbar.
Moments later Norris had a chance to grab his second – Hare delivered another good ball to the near post and the striker, on the turn, had a right foot shot well caught by Overland.
On 26 minutes German was just unable to get a shot away inside the box; Stanford arrived on the scene but Miller blocked his powerful effort before the resulting corner was headed into the hands of Overland by Legge.
A free kick by Dack was comfortably stopped by the keeper before the Faversham stopper was eventually beaten for a second time – German was fed the ball on the right hand side and with an accurate strike just beat the keeper at the near post to give the visitors a deserved advantage.
The forward should have had a second minutes later but his header from a Dack cross just whistled past the far post.
Renford Tanye nearly grabbed a goal out of nothing with a speculative effort just before the interval, but it provided the Gills stopper with no issues as it cleared the woodwork.
H/T: 1-2
Linganzi had the first half chance of the second period – a cross from Dack was cleared and the midfielder chose to shoot from all of 30 yards.
Dan Carrington blocked the effort and the ball nestled into the arms of Overland.
Gills then took command of the game with two goals in the space of 60 seconds – the first was an own goal from Botterill.
Dack whipped in a corner which was met by German, his shot was debatably going wide but the winger was unable to escape the shot and diverted the ball into an empty net.
With Faversham trying to gather themselves following the third goal they conceded again very quickly.
A deep cross to the back post looked to have evaded everyone but Linganzi read it well and hit it first time into the bottom corner with the keeper unable to do anything about it.
Faversham did their utmost to try and resist the Gillingham pressure but the chances kept on coming with German, Dack and finally Blanchard being denied by sub keeper Rob French.
However with nine minutes to play the net did bulge once again when a penalty was awarded for a late challenge on Josh Stanford.
German decided to take the penalty and he was clinical in sending French the wrong way and increasing the Gills lead.
And the scoring wasn’t over – Freiter, who had come on midway through the half in place of Aaron Morris, struck the ball well just inside the area with his left foot and it hit the underside of the bar and into the net before French could react.
This proved to be the last action of the game with the Gills walking off to a deserved applause by all supporters.
F/T: 1-6
Faversham: Overland (French 70), Sherlock, Maxted, Carrington, Bourne, Miller, Marsden, Bewick (Stone 70), Tanye, Grant, Botterill.
Subs: Harvey, Oliver, Rogers, Priddle, Scarborough
Gills: G Morris, Hare, Davies, Legge (C), Borrowdale, Dack (Blanchard), Linganzi (Aujla), A Morris (Freiter 70), Stanford (Sellens 81), Norris, German.
Subs: Trialist, Bent