Richard Dobson was disappointed to lose the Vertu Trophy group stage game against Colchester United after two late goals in the 2-1 defeat at the JobServe Community Stadium, but said there were plenty of positives to take from the performance which included a number of first year pros and apprentices.
Dobson was pleased that some of the club's younger cohort got to experience a fixture against a strong league opposition, crediting Colchester for the respect they showed the competition.
The Gillingham assistant manager discussed the reasoning behind Seb Palmer-Houlden dropping out of the line-up before kick-off, and provided an update on where Sam Vokes is at as he continues to build his match fitness.
On the game and the experience for younger players…
I thought that Colchester showed great respect to the competition in terms of the side that they put out. It’s a very different game as I told the boys before the game that it would be than the last game against Fulham’s under-21 side. We knew that it was going to be a quicker pace and a lot more physical, and it was a really good test.
We’ve got young players who are coming in that have been on loan and have played youth team football, and the pace of that is nothing like this. This competition is there to help us blood those young players to bring them up to the speed that they need to get to, to be ready for League Two football, and we also have players that are coming back from injury that need to get themselves up to the speed for our first team games come the weekend.
It was a tough night for them. They’ve had to suffer a little bit, but when you look at what we’re trying to do with this competition and develop players. Would you rather roll over a young Colchester side quite comfortably and give yourself a pat on the back and think that everything’s fine? Or do you want them to come in and suffer a little bit against first team ready players who play at a good pace and learn what it takes to play League Two football on a regular basis?
Seb Palmer-Houlden withdrawing from the line-up before kick-off…
He felt something just behind his knee in the warm-up, so we took him out as a precaution. That’s not something that we want to risk with Seb. Obviously, we’re delighted to get him back and around the fold, and we weren’t going to risk anything silly. We will have a look at how that is tomorrow, and see how that settles down and keep our fingers crossed with it.
The immediate reaction was that we’re not going to take that risk. What he’s done, I don’t know at this moment in time. We will find out. We will have the evening to allow it to settle down, and we will assess tomorrow. Fingers crossed that it’s nothing too serious, and we will hopefully have him with us for the weekend.
On Sam Vokes…
It was off his knee, wasn’t it? He had another couple of chances as well. He’s one of the ones that we’re nursing along carefully. He had a bit of a knock in pre-season coming back from that arm injury, so we have got to be careful with Vokesy because we can’t overload him. So far, we have been able to play him for 30 minutes off the bench.
We’re getting closer and closer to him having more match time and getting to a position where he might be able to start. Tonight was just building him up again and getting him 45 minutes under his belt, which he has dealt with.
