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Gillingham manager Neil Harris is keeping calm amid the big build-up to Monday’s crunch game.
It’s a relegation scrap at Priestfield tomorrow as the Gills host Fleetwood Town, who sit a point and a place behind them in the League 1 table.
A draw for the Gills at Cheltenham lifted them outside the bottom four above Monday’s visitors. Fleetwood fell two places and into the drop zone after losing 3-2 at home to Oxford United.
Looking towards the game, Harris said: “The players will be ready and they will have a very calm manager who picks the team, hopefully the right team, the right tactics and the right formation, to play against Fleetwood and we’ll attack the game.”
The Gills were 11 points behind Fleetwood when Harris took charge at the end of January and they have clawed their way back to the brink of safety. Three games remain.
In that time Fleetwood have picked up eight points, in contrast to the 20 that the Gills have amassed under Harris, a turnaround over the last 10 weeks that has seen them in with a good chance of survival.
Harris said: “We were miles behind Fleetwood and now we are in a more positive position and we can go into the game with some momentum, even off the back of a couple of draws, we played Wycombe at home and could have won it [the match ended 1-1] and on Friday we could have won it [that game finished 2-2]. We are moving in the right direction.
“I reminded the players of that when there was a bit of frustration in the changing room, that picked them up, what we have still got is a positive changing room, and a working men’s mindset that you get up and go back and do your job the next day.
“The lads were in Saturday and on Sunday to be ready for Monday.
“I didn’t hide away or shirk away from the fact that this was a big weekend, it has just made it even bigger with the point against Cheltenham and where we are in the table, we have to be as good as we have been since I have been here, if not the best we have been to beat Fleetwood on Monday.”
