29Nov

Jekyll and Hyde – a familiar story!

by Gary W

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We all know about cup runs interfering with a side’s league form and we certainly are all more than familiar about how sides can raise their game against bigger sides once the FA Cup gets underway.  Quite why players can perform supremely well in one game and then fall flat in the next will always remain a mystery, something that a spectator at both of this week’s games at Priestfield would find themselves scratching their head at!

Firstly, Bournemouth arrived on Tuesday evening for the FA Cup first round replay and not many (apart from Ian McBride that is) would have predicted a goal fest after the original tie had ended 3-3.  The Cherries’ manager Lee Bradbury was clearly hurting about conceding those late goals and would surely bring a much tighter side defensively.  And although the Gills seem to be banging in goals for fun away from home, it is something that hasn’t been as prevalent at home.

But this was the FA Cup so I was inevitably proved wrong.  A scintillating game threw up five more goals to take the tie’s total to eleven with every one of those goals being scored by a different player!  Before the round, concerns about where the goals would come from with both Kuffour and Nouble being refused permission to play by their parent clubs clearly proved to be of little consequence!  Curtis Weston finally got on the score sheet this season having played seventeen games and opened the scoring.  For an attacking player of the calibre he is capable of he should have more, especially considering that defender Garry Richards scored the Gills’ second to earn his third of the season and with fewer games played!

There was now just fifteen minutes left on the clock and the score was at 2-1 after Andy Frampton had previously also scored – just in the wrong net!  The game was put safe by a good Stefan Payne goal to put the home side 3-1 up and set up a very similar scenario to the first tie.  When Harry Arter scored a great direct free-kick from outside of the area on ninety minutes to pull one back, thoughts turned to the original tie, however the Gills’ own ninetieth minute strike was an equaliser and this time there wasn’t enough time for Bournemouth to get another (although they did go close)!

So with confidence high, the visit of out-of-form and struggling Bradford City shouldn’t have posed too much of a threat.  Their manager Phil Parkinson was at the game on Tuesday and left looking glum shortly after the Gills went 3-1 up.  It was clear that he would set his side up to not concede a goal – a tactic that was almost undone immediately as Kuffour hit the post after only two minutes.  Despite this, there was little action of any kind during much of the rest of the tie apart from Bradford wasting chances a schoolchild would take, having a goal disallowed for offside and a goal-line scramble right at the death saw three Gillingham chances somehow scrambled away.  But the main bulk of the play was poor with neither side able to keep possession.  Bradford came for a point (maybe should have had three) and sometimes it was ugly.

Their manager contested every little challenge or knock with such vigour, even from incidents that went in favour of the visitors, and ensured the ex-Charlton manager received plenty of boos.  Perhaps the Addicts connection had more to do with it than him being well outside of his technical area but he led his side to break up the play and defend in numbers to get a much needed point.  With no away victories in the league and sitting only a place above the relegation zone, I suppose it was obvious the game would go that way.

We never seem to have an answer to sides that come and play that way, these are often games we somehow end up losing!  Against sides that who play a passing game we invariably do much better and is the main reason I feel that, should we get out of this league and with the players we have, we might fare much better in League 1 than in League 2.  But those Jekyll and Hyde performances in the space of four days have to be addressed as we will have many more Bradford type displays to over-come to avoid ruining any hopes of a promotion party come May.

Posted by Gillingham fan Gary Wade