Gillingham manager Steve Lovell happy his tinkering paid off against Bristol Rovers

By: Luke Cawdell lcawdell@thekmgroup.co.uk

Published: 09:24, 18 December 2017

Gillingham’s management team congratulated themselves on a job well done against Bristol Rovers.

The Gills were up against it early on, starting the game with a 4-2-3-1 formation, but an early switch put them in command.

Boss Steve Lovell saw his side storm to a 4-1 victory and claim a first home league win since they beat Charlton in mid-September.

Gills got into their stride after a change of tactics against Bristol Rovers Picture: Andy Jones

Explaining the switch, Lovell said: “When teams are on top, you have to change something. You have to see it to change it.

“I said to Patto (coach Mark Patterson) afterwards, it is something we have to give ourselves credit for. In the dressing room I said to the boys, ‘you have performed it and we saw what the problem was. We changed it early enough to have an effect on the game’.

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“The staff can take the plaudits for that.”

The switch cancelled out Rovers’ threat down the right flank and Lovell said: “We had to play Alex Lacey at left-back because of Connor Ogilvie’s illness.

"Alex would be the first to admit that early on he was a little out of sorts positionally, but we got him a little bit of cover, with Lee Martin helping him.

“Luke O’Neill and Scott Wagstaff had a great partnership early on (down Gills’ right) but we didn’t on the other side. As soon as Lee went in front of Alex he had that confidence to work together and it worked.”

Lovell has routinely changed tactics early on in matches, making it a guessing game for opposition teams as to which way his team will set up.

He said: “It has been well-documented that I like tinkering with formations and that. You can tinker with them, but you have to work on them.

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“We work on the training ground so when I said we were going back to 4-4-2 everyone knew what was happening. It was just second nature to them. The pleasing thing for us was understanding the game.

“We have people watching games, scouts will come back with their reports, but when you turn up on the day they could change to anything. That is why you have to be prepared.

“With the personnel I had (playing on Saturday) I could have used three other formations if needed.”