What a transformation! Think back to October time, when the Gills couldn’t string two passes together, defended abysmally and were too scared to shoot. Well, since the arrival of Stan Ternent, we’ve seen him gradually rectify each of these failings and the culmination of this was last night’s performance. Well, the first half anyway.
In that opening half, we were gifted a soft goal when Jay McEveley’s free-kick went all the way through the Stoke defence and nestled into the bottom corner of the net. But from that moment on, Gillingham totally dominated the half. It wasn’t just long-ball football either. Yes, we did go direct on plenty of occasions, but those balls were often measured and gave Mama Sidibe and Darius Henderson a fighting chance of winning possession. But for much of the first half, we saw something that we’d not seen in many a game at Priestfield this season – passing football.
Some of the interplay between Flynn, McEveley, Douglas and Smith was a joy to watch. Smith in particular was excellent. He’s come in for plenty of criticism from me this season – and I’ve felt I’ve been justified in that criticism, but now he looks revitalised and is clearly benefiting from having better players alongside him. Rather than hiding, players are making themselves available and the passes were being popped about beautifully at times in the opening 45 minutes. The only concern was the lack of a second goal.
Mickey Flynn should have doubled the lead when put clean through by Smith, but pushed his shot just wide, while other chances went begging. But rather than scoring and holding on, the Gills were clearly the better side – and against a genuine playoff contender too.
Stoke had a couple of chances of their own, most notably a Clive Clarke free kick which must rank up there as one of the hardest shots seen at Priestfield this season. His screamer left Banks sprawling, but struck the outside of the post.
In the second half, Stoke came out of the blocks much better and took a foothold in the match. The play became scrappy and this suited Stoke, who began to find their front men Kenwyne Jones and Gifton Noel Williams. Gillingham still created chances, while Steve Banks was having a very easy day at the office, having to deal with a few corners, but not much else in terms of shots on goal. The blame for Stoke’s equaliser, however, has to be laid at Steve Banks’ door. He came rushing off his line to deal with a routine ball into the box, but got nowhere near it, clashing instead with Chris Hope and leaving Jones with a simple header into an empty net.
After that goal, Gillingham took over once again. They sucked Stoke in, then hit them on the counter attack as the match began to open up. Then, as the match moved into it’s last quarter, a corner was swung in and the ball was nodded clear to Paul Smith 25 yards out. He walked onto the ball and lashed a swerving, dipping effort which flew into the top right hand corner of the net to send Priestfield mad and set Smith off on a memorable glory run, pursued by his jubilant teammates. It was a strike to win any match – and great reward for a Man of the Match performance by the skipper. He had a blinder – and his goal capped off a great performance.
The margin of victory could have been bigger, too as Gillingham created plenty of problems for the usually rock-solid Stoke defence, with the movement and work rate of Mama Sidibe, proving a real handful for Gerry Taggart and Michael Duberry.
In the end, the Gills did enough to win – and the reaction of Stan Ternent as he walked along the touchline at the end was great to see. His big grin and clenched fist salute to the Medway Stand showed that whatever people think will happen in the summer, Stan is certainly committed to the Gills right now – and he is desperate to keep us up. He was delighted and he made that very clear on his way off.
Last night’s results now leave us within a win of six teams at the bottom of the league, while extending our gap over Nottingham Forest, who didn’t play last night. It was a crucial win – and leaves us with a target of four wins from eight matches to make Stan’s 52-point target.
If we can replicate last night’s performance in our remaining eight matches, we’ll be safe, no problem.