Richard Dobson said the side gave themselves too much to do on Saturday following the 2-1 defeat against Salford City at the MEMS Priestfield Stadium.
The Gills assistant manager discussed the defeat, provided an update on Glenn Morris, spoke about Garath McCleary's recovery and looked ahead to the FA Cup First Round tie at Newport County.
On the defeat…
We gave ourselves a little bit too much to do, having conceded the early goals in the game. Something that we highlighted would be a strength of theirs, and so it was, and I am a little bit disappointed that we didn’t react to that quicker, with Cesay, in particular, coming through midfield.
In terms of chances throughout the game, we have created plenty of chances again. Obviously, the missed penalty was a big turning point. I think that I’ve just heard that they had two shots on target and scored two goals. We had seven and scored one. That’s the story of the game.
On Glenn Morris going off with an injury…
He’s felt his groin as he’s kicked it, so that’s just the situation that we’re in at the moment.
There was a little bit in the warm-up. He said he felt something, and he was tested before the game. The tests came through fine, so as far as we were concerned, he was going to be okay. Obviously, the first kick has opened it up, and that’s where he has felt it. I’m disappointed for him. There was no signal from the medical team that would be the case. It was a bit of a freak one, really.
In Jake Turner, we have a capable goalkeeper who can step in.
On Garath McCleary’s recovery…
He’s getting closer. I would say that he’s still going to be a week or two away. We can’t risk that one. It’s not something that we want to push, particularly with Garath and his age. We don’t want to lose him for the season. He’s going to be important to us, so we’ve got to go with it at the moment. When he’s back and he’s ready, we will get him back in the fold.
Looking towards Newport in the FA Cup…
It’s just another game. We will approach it in exactly the same way. We obviously love the cup competitions. The FA Cup is always good to get a run in, so we will be approaching it in exactly the same way as we have done with the other games. We will have a good look at them over the course of this week. They had a good win today, Newport. We know from the time that we played there earlier in the season, where we got a 3-1 win, but we were under the cosh and could have easily gone a couple of goals behind early on. We know that they’re a good side.
