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Gillingham's assistant manager John Schofield writes exclusively for the KM Group

John Schofield
John Schofield

In a perverse way, Tuesday’s 1-0 win over Southend felt better than the 4-0 victory over Bristol Rovers at the weekend.

Results like the one in the week don’t come by accident and we do a lot of work on the practice ground in preparation for every scenario.

We practice over-loads where it’s 11 versus five and the players are defending the penalty area, although it’s not the same as doing it in the heat of the battle for 50 minutes, 10 men versus 11.

Even during that time on Tuesday with a man down, we still had a little patch where we kept possession of the ball.

And we don’t only practice attack versus defence over-load, we do it the other way around and there are times when we are doing shapes where in a small area we’ll have 10 outfield players against 16 opposition where there is no space, it’s about quick thinking and quick touches.

Things are going well so far but we have to remember we are only eight weeks into the project this season, plus four or five weeks in pre-season, so this is still in its infancy.

But what the lads are doing is that they are absorbing everything we tell them and they are taking things on board. The commitment and the effort is there for all to see.

The fans on Tuesday saw that and they were fantastic.

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