Gillingham’s bid for survival got a shot in the arm at the weekend.

The Gills climbed out of the bottom four with a crucial home win over Scunthorpe, pushing them closer to the magical 50-points tally.

That’s the target for Lovell, as he aims to get the Gills to safety as quickly as possible.

Fifty points is usually enough to ensure survival and Lovell’s men need 14 more from 14 games to reach that requirement.

“Like I said last year, 50 points is something we want to get to as quick as possible and if we keep playing and battling like that then we will soon get to it,” said Lovell.

“It doesn’t matter where you are in the league, 42 points is 12th or something stupid like that and we are on 36.

“If we get another couple (of wins) we’re up in the top half. It is very close, it’s going to be tight.

“It will be a tight end to the season, we all know that, but we have done it before and we will do it again.”

The Gills stayed up last year on 56 points and survived the previous season on 50, thanks to a final-day draw at Northampton.

Fifty points has been enough to stay up for seven out of the last 10 seasons in League 1, although the Gills were relegated to League 2 on that number after a catastrophic day in Wycombe back in 2010.

Gillingham’s performance in the victory over Scunthorpe was much-improved and more of the same should ensure it won’t turn into a numbers game this time around.

“It was the fight that was shown by everyone, that was the thing,” added Lovell.

“Only time will tell but it’s a win and all we can do is get the three points and move onto Tuesday, Sunderland away, which is a very good fixture for us.

“We go there in a different frame of mind than we would have done if we lost the game. I think it is important we push on and after Sunderland we have four or five games against teams around us so the next few games are very important.

“If we can stay resilient together defensively we will win a lot of games between now and the end of the season and pick up the points we need.”