Gills are incredible. Gills are terrible. Gills are… fine
Ben Hopkins surveys a mixed opening month of spectacular goals, frustrating results and an increasingly achy Gillingham squad
What’s it like when Gills are smashing Rochdale? Oh, it’s incredible. And what’s it like when you get battered at home and lose a key player to injury? Oh, it’s terrible, it’s horrible. And what’s it like when you’re in the middle of the table? It’s, erm, you know, it’s fine. Ben Hopkins rounds up a month at Gillingham FC...
Kick-off
The season started much like a pre-season friendly. No one expected much from a Carabao Cup game against a strong League One side in the shape of Luton, and that’s what we got: a straightforward 0-3 defeat, notably one for featuring last-minute emergency on-loan goalkeeper Owen Mason.
Seven days later, the league season commenced at home at Walsall. Mason had moved on, so a second emergency ‘keeper, Ashley Maynard-Brewer, replaced him. And for 75 minutes, aided by the industry of young midfielder Zane Albarus, Gillingham looked convincing and probably should’ve been in front, perhaps even out of sight. But an 81st-minute Walsall goal ignited the total capitulation that we saw so often last season, eventually ending 0-3 yet again.
0-0 away to Fleetwood saw Gills create the better chances despite the stats suggesting otherwise, before a first professional goal from Conor McManus took the lead at home to Northampton. They equalised with a rare opportunity, and while Gills huffed and puffed, clear goal-scoring opportunities were close to absent. Given Northampton’s poor showing, post-game chat boiled down to: well, we did okay… but if we’re not going to win that, when are we going to win? It wouldn’t be away to Chesterfield, where Gills somehow scrapped a 1-1 draw.
The answer came away to Rochdale. James Brophy took the lead for Gills with a goal of the season contender, followed early in the second half by a close range finish from Omar Beckles and then a pinpoint header from Lamin Sillah. Already cruising, the day was effectively over when Rochdale’s Edward Francis was dismissed for a second yellow card. And then Brophy took possession on the halfway line, ran and ran, danced and jinked and then… EAT MY GOAL! That will be the goal of the season. Ordinarily you’d complain about the marking for Rochdale’s consolation, but everyone was more than happy to celebrate a day in which supporting Gills actually made sense.
So five games in, six points, neutral goal difference and 13th place. Clearly, Gills still need to create and score far more to have even an average season. But you could say it’s softly encouraging. There’s a huge reliance on youth - of the 18-man Northampton match squad, eight have less than a season’s worth of experience to their name. So it’s likely we’ll have weeks where they look full of potential and others where they seem collectively clueless.
Gills may finally have found the imaginative midfielder they have been missing, but an alarming injury list is already testing the squad. Register free to continue reading.
