Gillingham manager Neil Harris believes a brighter horizon is ahead for the club - and the fans deserve it.

It’s been a tough 10 months in charge for Harris, with relegation from League 1 being followed by struggles this season. With club chairman and owner Paul Scally taking a back seat, there are strong takeover rumours. Comments from Harris ahead of their weekend cup game at Dagenham suggest those talks might be progressing well.

He said: “It’s not easy every day but what drives me on is the fact that this club has got a brighter horizon, hopefully, coming soon, and everyone deserves that, now let’s move forward, it started Sunday.”

Harris had the players in on their day off on Sunday morning to explain his harsh post-match comments after a 2-0 loss at Newport. He got the right response, with an improved performance at Crawley on Tuesday, albeit without those elusive goals.

Harris said: “My comments were borne out of frustration, that I am fed up with not winning games and I know fans echo that. For them to still support me, having not had the most successful reign in charge, because we haven’t won loads of games, because of where we find ourselves as a club at the moment, then that means a lot.

“I don’t do social media so I don’t know [of the fans’ response to his Newport reaction] but all I have done since I have come in is to try and help and guide, longevity for me here is not always a manager’s decision but one thing I did do when I first walked in was say this fanbase have had it tough for a period of time and one thing I will never do is pull the wool over their eyes.

“I will always be 100% honest, if that doesn't always go down in the correct manner with the fans, or with anyone in the building, then I have to deal with the consequences. I am always 100% honest and I have been since I walked in.

“I was just talking from the heart, just giving a reflection of where we are at at the moment, my reaction to that. Off the back of reading my own quotes which were reported, I decided to come in Sunday morning, 6.30am, the players and staff weren’t in quite that early, but I decided to come in and do something about it.

“We didn’t see a goal (on Tuesday), that was all that was missing, the fans saw a better performance, battling qualities, I would like to think that started form me bringing the players in on Sunday, on my day off (where I would have been) watching my daughters play football.

“I felt it was the right thing to do. It was was the right thing to do Saturday night to be one million per cent honest and the right thing to do Sunday morning, and my players responded excellently.”