Gills boss Gareth Ainsworth said he was proud of his players following Saturday's 2-2 draw at home to Crawley.
The visitors had to come from behind twice to secure a point, with Bradley Dack and Robbie McKenzie on target at ME7.
Speaking after the game, the manager had the below to say:
Thoughts on the game:
There were two teams really going at it today and I am proud of my boys, however I also give credit to Crawley Town, they have come here and stuck to their guns. We forced them into an unusual style of football, and their second goal was a class act, although we could have stopped it higher up the pitch, but you have to give them credit.
A couple of the boys have stood up and took accountability in the changing room after the game and when I hear that in the changing room, I’m thinking this is a good place to be, the boys are taking ownership.
I am disappointed with Bradley Dack’s header if I'm being honest, I think it may change the game if we go two up, I may look at changing the formation in order to see the game out. But it wasn’t to be today, we have had some decisions go against us in the past and this one definitely went against us, I personally think it is onside.
Dacky’s goal:
I’m giving Dobbo total credit for the goal, every week I ask what we can do from set pieces and I task my staff with being creative and coming up with something as I don't want to be boring or standard. Obviously Dobbo works really hard and has come up with a fantastic corner.
We rehearsed it in training on Friday and Dacky scored then also, so we thought it may well happen with the way Crawley defend corners.
The only problem was it was on Sky so we won’t be able to do it again for six more months! But we are really lucky to have a player with quality like Dacky to be on the end of that. There is 18 people in front of the goal and a goalkeeper so there is only one place you can put it, which is top bins and if you want anyone to do that, it’s Brad and it was a great way to take the lead before half-time.
With the penalty, I made the decision before the game to give it to Robbie McKenzie but it shows Bradley’s leadership is flourishing at the moment, he understood the decision, and he said he prefers to score open play goals rather than penalties anyway.
Thoughts on the penalty:
Robbie took a few good ones in training on Friday so I took the decision to nominate him prior to the game, and I’m glad I did. We are deserving of the penalty, Max Clark’s shot was heading towards the target and it was stopped, I’m glad the referee spotted that one.
It was hard to break down Crawley at times, we had our chances and I'm hoping they will say the same about us. But the game was a perfect advert for football with all the talk about the return of long throws and people becoming more direct, there were two styles of play on show today and both teams bought into what they were told and we love to put it on teams.
I had to change formation halfway through the first-half as I thought they were getting a lot of open play within the midfield. It was like a game of basketball at the start, and I didn’t want that, we wanted to control the game a bit better, but the way the boys defended we take a point and that’s League Two football sometimes.
Thoughts on Jake Turner:
Jake was outstanding, especially in that first five minutes when he made that save after Crawley broke away, we didn’t want to let them counter but Jake came to the rescue.
