The manager comments on the encounter against Mansfield last Saturday.
Neil Harris was happy with his team’s effort against Mansfield, winning a valuable point in the process after a 1-1 draw.
The visitors’ equalizer will be remembered, but Harris wanted to focus on the positives, which included Macauley Bonne scoring his first goal for the club.
With a difficult run of games ahead, the Gills manager believes they must sustain their current level of play until October.
Assessment of the performance…
“I think we have to accept that a point was ultimately a fair result and a really strong performance.” The manner in which we used and moved the ball at times. We broke through their defenses and went into excellent locations. We played well today and generated opportunities.
“On the other hand, we just needed to be a little more secure in the back.” We let up too many chances, which is not typical of us here, so that’s the learning curve for two centre-halves who haven’t played much football in particular, as well as a goalkeeper who hasn’t played much football. That triangle needs to take over a little more.
“Ultimately, for the start of a two-week period, it is a strong point against a very good side.”
The Mansfield goal…
“It’s a tough one. I’m not disputing the law so we can sit and talk, and we can watch it back and say that we should have kept the ball there and should have had better positional play. That is my job with the players to dissect that.
“Ultimately, if we just focus on the moment. Ethan [Coleman] brings the lad down, and there’s no debate. It’s a foul and a yellow card.
“The Mansfield players are well within their right to put their hand on and play; there’s no issue with that. The question to my two centre-halves is, do we protect the space well enough? That’s the debate.
“The debate then becomes around the letter of the law, which says he can put his hand on it and play it. I said to the referee that is the letter of the law however, your actions as a referee with the whistle and with the card and with the gesture to book the player makes it clear to everybody in the ground that you’re going to book a player.
“You allow them to take a quick free-kick six or seven yards further forward from where it was given away. Again, I am not going to dispute the rule on that. Ultimately, his body language and his demeanour has made our team stop and think it’s a yellow card. I said that is taking the decision out of the game. He then has to bring it back.
“I spoke with him, and he understands.” He needs to watch it again and talk about it with his coaches. The learning curve for us and my young center-halves is to prepare for the worse. I can understand why my team decided to cease.
“I haven’t seen anything like that in football in a long time.” I may have seen it once or twice in my 25 years of football, and I may never see it again. It’s highly disputed and quite subjective. Finally, I believe we are justified in feeling cheated in the present.
On Macauley Bonne…
“His performances have warranted it; he has been excellent. He knows as well as I do that strikers get judged on goal-scoring, and that is a fact. His all-round game has been exceptional. I thought today we saw another excellent performance.
“He led the line brilliantly, and he took his goal fantastically. A couple of good saves from the goalkeeper stopped him from adding to his tally. He is an important focal point of our team at the moment, and to get off the mark is really pleasing for him.
“He was disappointed last week at Doncaster and accepted criticism that he had not got on the scoresheet. I politely reminded him over the last few days about how well he did to get into those positions and how well he was playing.
Looking ahead…
“We have five tough games in 14 days, and we have set our standard now, not just with the home point but with the level of the performance. We have to take that into Crewe on Tuesday night.
“The challenge for the players when considering Crewe is that they’re on a fantastic unbeaten home run.” One of the division’s longest, if not the division’s longest. It is up to us to go out there and set ourselves up to win a football game.
“We won our first three away games and have had a difficult road trip.” We were bad at Grimsby and should have won at Donny, but we didn’t. I’m expecting a solid performance on Tuesday based on today’s performance and an away day mentality of strength, character, and personality.”