You may well be right,but if he wants to play Evans,he's got to drop either Matete or Luke. If he doesn't want to risk Pritchard from the start,Dan has to play.
Thanks again for your Match Day Thread RTB, and your line-up would do me, maybe start with Winny in a back 4 which has previously looked strong. and I cant see us not scoring, although 1-0 will keep the ball rolling, I always hope for more just to ease the pressure. OaU
Brilliant thread as usual and a big welcome back to the RTB match thread! Love that formation. I would ease Broadhead and Pritchard back in from the bench if they make it. If they break down again, that could be season over. Given Roberts performance against Lincoln, I would start him in that role, in front of Matete and O'Nien. I would like to see Xhemajli in there to deal with the rough stuff. Maybe have Dajaku in alongside Stewart to move their defence around a little bit. Gillingham are fighting for their lives, so this won't be a cakewalk, but I think we'll have too much for them. Score early with a hard fought 3-0 win and back in the play off places.
Sunderland 2-0 Gills Evening lads, Gills fan here, I noticed a couple of your guys have us as an away win in the voting. I think they need to give their heads a shake lol. Anyway, I've got you guys to win, reasons stated below, something that I wrote some days ago on the Gills board, no point me rewriting it... Before Neil Harris, 10 point gap between us and survival, we looked down and guaranteed life in L2 for next season. In comes the messiah and as of yesterday, we are now four points clear of relegation, probably one of the greatest turnarounds at our club ever. Now the real business end starts in the final six game run-in. Let's not kid ourselves, despite Harris performing miracles, he's not going to be able to take us to the next level of beating a top 6/7 side, despite our home draw against Sheffield Wednesday and our away win at Accrington, in successive games. In truth my eyes will be elsewhere, Wimbledon are at Wednesday and Doncaster are at Wycombe, so they both have difficult away tasks like us. While Morecambe have the slightly easier home advantage of Burton Albion. In my eyes we only need to be equal, to whatever those three teams do. If we lose, the only team that can go above us is Fleetwood who are at Crewe, now that is likely to happen, but it still leaves us outside of the relegation zone. Not forgetting our biggest game, for many a season, will probably be at home to Fleetwood on the Easter Bank Holiday Monday - so let's try and get through these difficult games without injuries, because our biggest tests are yet to come. Our final six games.... A: Sunderland lose H: Wycombe, could we get a point here? A: Cheltenham draw H: Fleetwood must win A: Pompey lose H: Rotherham, will be decided by what we achieve above A bit extra that I will add for this text, I forgot to mention in another post, I said I don't want to pick up any injuries in this game, because there are games we know we can get something in, so if we come away without any knocks, that will be victory in itself for me.
Cracking thread again RTB and a joy to see it’s return. Home win for me hard game but aren’t they all. Hopefully after the last 2 away games the players have their chance taking boots on. It’s all about the points for me now although performances particularly away from home have been much improved and I feel a big win sooner or later.
Cheers RTB. Your match thread is a sight for sore eyes. We’re good in some areas but still weak in others. If Neil can tackle those weaknesses and get an extra 10% out of a few players then we’ll have too much for Gillingham. As has been said, we need to keep our heads when the niggley stuff and time wasting goes on.
Great thread as always. Cheers RTB. By my reckoning this is a must win game. I hate the term but not winning here might just be catastrophic. The players and coach have put themselves in an awkward spot by not winning enough. Neil Harris is a very good coach who has turned Gillingham around and deserves amazing credit. He will setup to draw and it is up to Neil to aim to win from the off, something I am not convinced he has done enough of. Clean sheets wont get us to the play offs now. Dont dislike your team RTB. In my opinion though Dan Neil has to play every game to the end of the season. He is by far the best footballer in this league, for me. We must play through him at all times. Our best performances have always been when he has been on the ball, it is time to give him the ball back and play football on the ground and through the thirds, and give up this percentage stuff that makes us easy to defend against. Time to let the footballers loose Alex!
HA'WAY THE LADS MACKEMS ATTACKEM Coooomon ya fooookas. Sunny my black cat, ready to rip it up. Lets finish this league on a high and claw our way out.
That would be a blow. That creativity out of nothing could be the key in really tight games. He was one I was hoping would be back for the last 3 or 4.
Same here. Shame if it ends like this for him here. Would have been good to give him a bit of a send off. I've enjoyed watching him.
I agree with you, and it would've been good to see him play again, but I believe the players we have should be keeping him out anyway. We have talented fit you players like Broadhead, Clarke, Neil, Embleton, Dajaku, Roberts, etc, who shouldn't be giving McGeady a look in. And Pritchard is more effective than any of them imo.
Hard to disagree mate, apart from the Pritchard bit maybe. Although I a big fan if his and he makes a lot happen, in my opinion it is Dan Neil who makes us play football that other teams cant contain. McGeady though, from the bench, had that ability and nous in the big moments. I would have been confident he finds that early ball, or bit of space for a finish, that might just nick us a win.
I love Neil but he doesn't have half the work rate or effectiveness of Pritchard who's always involved.
Workrate yes. Pritchard plays in that top 3 where the high press was so key, at least under Johnson anyway. He led it more often than not and is a scrapper without the ball. On the ball though I think Neil is more effective. He receives from the back 3 or 4 on the half turn and can ghost past the first man to move us forward. His eye for a pass is superb and he can play them and it is often to open teams up. Under Alex Neil he hasnt had the chance to shine because of this, at times, negative long ball stuff. But give him the ball and he can dominate long passages of play. I am very confident he will play for a top 6 prem club and England in time. We might disagree on this mate, but look on the bright side, we are disagreeing about two very talented players that most championship teams would pick in their first 11 right now!
I was hoping to see McGeady and Defoe end the season strongly, not to be, but it was a nice thought while it lasted.
