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Gillingham manager Neil Harris says it’s too early to take any notice of League 2 table

Manager Neil Harris is reading nothing into Gillingham’s position at the top of League 2.

Gills boast the only 100% record after three games but it’s too early to take any notice of the standings.

Gillingham boss Neil Harris. Picture: @Julian_KPI
Gillingham boss Neil Harris. Picture: @Julian_KPI

Fans are enjoying the moment - singing ‘We are top of the league’ after Tuesday night’s 1-0 win at Sutton - but the boss is playing it cool.

“I don’t look at the top of the table,” said Harris.

“It doesn’t matter if we’re top with three wins or eighth with three wins, the fact we’ve got nine points from three games is a great start.

“We’re not going to keep winning games all season.

“There’s going to be ups and downs during the season.

“When you’re going well, you have to keep amassing points because there’s going to be a blip somewhere along the line.

“All we can do is keep building confidence and momentum.

“I’m very level-headed and I keep my dressing room like that.

“My teams, believe it or not, have always been better in the second half of the season.

“For me, it’s amassing as many points as possible as early as we can and then we start getting to the horrible months of November/December when the weather turns and the pitches get heavy and everyone’s played 25 games in League 2, you start getting injuries and you need points on the board.

“It’s just making sure we’ve got that win-the-next-game mentality and if the football club likes to be at the top of the league, we have to keep winning games to stay there.”

Harris has a figure in mind for when the league table counts for something and Gillingham, who visit third-placed Crawley on Saturday (3pm), are some way off that.

“Twelve games,” said the manager, when asked when their league position does become significant.

“Stevenage got promoted last year I think by picking up nine out of 10 victories or something ridiculous like that and that’s what carried them through their dark times.

“We just need to keep winning games, just to keep amassing the points.

“The league table, it’s great for the fans, it’s great for the football club but for me I won’t look at the league table, I’ve got no interest in the league table.

“All I want to do is get ready for Crawley on Saturday.

“I’ve got no thought process in looking any further than Crawley at the moment.”

Gillingham are looking good, though, with the victory at Sutton showing their ability to handle the physical side of League 2.

That will be key to their chances of challenging for promotion, with the division full of big teams.

Harris said: “I showed the boys one of the shortest videos I’ve shown all season because I just wanted to put in their minds exactly what Sutton do and I concentrated more on our defensive structure and restarts.

“I just said, ‘Guys, I’m going to learn more about you today than I’ve learnt about you as a group since January, I’m going to see what we’ve got’.

“That’s the last thing I said before the warm-up, that’s the last thing I said before we went out.

“We’ve just shown that against any given team we can stand up to a physical battle and we know we’ve got some really good footballers.”

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