by Luke Cawdell

Gillingham boss Martin Allen was pleased to see his team get their rewards after a much-improved home performance against Plymouth.

Wins have been hard to come by consistently for the Gills at Priestfield, but they bossed Saturday’s game to take a deserved victory.

"Without a shadow of a doubt it was the best performance for a while," said Allen, pictured.

"The plan from Tuesday morning was to put a positive plan of action into place where we had to try and turn it around and not just have an acceptance that at this time of year anxiety and tension is high.

"Winning at home in front of your own supporters is difficult and it’s not just at Gillingham. It is the same right through. That’s how it is but we thought we would do something about it.

"The players have worked and trained tremendously hard and it doesn’t come through luck."

The Gills started the game brightly and opened the scoring through young loanee Antonio German. Fellow youngster Bradley Dack also impressed, but Allen was keen to acknowledge the team’s performance.

"It was good to watch," he said. "It was nice to see our team to play with a lot more confidence and belief in front of our home supporters.

"Credit has to go to the players, for the work they have put in. I was very proud at the end. I was stood in the corner and saw the ovation and listened to the atmosphere throughout the afternoon from our supporters and it took a lot of courage and the players put in the performance and the supporters, I think, enjoyed it

"Both (Dack and German are) young, both full of energy and running power and both the lads did great. Bradley is a very good player and was very unlucky not to score again and Antonio gives us something different.

"I am not going to single anyone out and it certainly wasn’t a master tactical move by me. All our players in our squad can play in that team and now all the players on that bench will play Tuesday or Saturday because we have three games in a week.

"The players deserved the credit at the end that they got from all of our supporters staying behind and they lifted the roof off. We will probably have to get health and safety in because the noise levels were quite incredible."