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Sport

Gillingham winger Jayden Clarke on new head coach Stephen Clemence and an FA Cup win at Hereford

By: Luke Cawdell lcawdell@thekmgroup.co.uk

Published: 05:00, 06 November 2023

Updated: 06:57, 06 November 2023

It’s so far so good working under a new manager for Gillingham winger Jayden Clarke.

He’s excited for how the side could develop under Stephen Clemence, with some of the head coach’s ideas on show at Hereford - mainly in the first half of their FA Cup First-Round match.

Jayden Clarke in action for Gillingham against Hereford Picture: @Julian_KPI

More: Sleepless nights for new Gills boss

The Gills looked the part in the opening 45 minutes against non-league Hereford, taking a one-goal advantage into the break and having enough chances to be leading by more.

The second half was more of a battle but the Gills stayed solid and sealed the win with a late penalty.

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“It’s been good,” said Clarke, of working with a new manager.

“He only came in on Thursday morning, so we have only had two days with him but so far, so good.

“All the messages he has given us we have tried to take onboard and implement. We’ve got a long time ahead to keep working with him.

“It’s been good to work with him and look forward to the future.

“It was nice to be on the ball, we have the players to do it, now we need to try and perfect it, try and keep doing it in the games going forward.”

The players know they need to score more to become a real threat in League 2 and they finally added to their tally late on against Hereford.

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Gillingham have been more potent infront of goal in cup competitions this season, with 10 goals from five games, in contrast to 14 in 16 league encounters.

Clarke scored the opener at Hereford, with the aid of a deflection, and he admits he needs to be scoring more.

He’s got two goals this season, his other coming in the League Cup game against Luton Town.

Clarke said: “As a team, we knew we needed to score more goals, since he (the new head coach) has come in he has wanted us to get on the ball a bit more, score more goals, be more creative, we are working on that.

“Hopefully that will come in the following weeks.

“When we got the first goal when we were on top we controlled it, out of possession we were good with our shape.

“I know I haven’t scored in a while, I have been harsh on myself, but I need to start adding more goals to my game and hopefully now I have got one, it was a bit lucky, but I’ll take it and hopefully I can build on that now.

“We knew at half-time we needed a second and when you come away to teams who are a few leagues lower you know they are going to give it a good go, we never felt really threatened though, we kept our shape and kept our discipline and it was good to get the penalty and kill off the game.”

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