By David Pritchard
Mark Stimson admitted he did not know for sure if he will still be Gillingham manager for this weekend’s trip to Yeovil after the club dropped into the League One relegation zone.
A 1-0 defeat to Tranmere Rovers at Priestfield last night extended the club’s winless run to eight games in all competitions. Not for the first time in recent weeks a section of the the home fans vented their frustration after falling behind and on the final whistle.
Stimson is expecting to speak to chairman Paul Scally today (Wednesday). It is a matter of routine for the two to speak after games, but after slipping into the bottom four Stimson felt his job was on the line.
He said: “Yeah, I think so and rightly so because we haven’t produced recently. It doesn’t frighten me or add any pressure to me because I think I’ll be OK. We’ve all got our own views and the chairman’s the one who makes the decisions.
“I’m realistic, we know it’s a results business. There’s not many managers this season who have gone in the bottom four and survived. Whatever happens will happen and hopefully for the right reasons.
“We’ll probably speak and fingers crossed I’m still in charge because it’s a fantastic club, it’s got a fantastic fan base with some good players who could possibly be like a [Matt] Jarvis and kick on again. The only way they will do that no matter who’s in charge whether it’s me or Mr Capello they have to do it. We can only help them so much, they have to take it on themselves and make sure they prepare properly and really produce.”
Tuesday’s result came three days after a 4-0 defeat at Brentford, which saw Stimson make four changes to the starting line-up. The Gills boss felt a goalless draw would have been the fair result but criticised some of his players for lacking the “bottle” needed to get a result.
He said: “It looks as though they’re lacking confidence, me personally I would say bottle. Not getting in front of the opponent, that’s not confidence, I think that’s thinking ‘I might get a whack here’ – well so what, get a whack and get on with it. Some of them looked like they were waiting for it and Tranmere came with a game plan. They wanted something out of the game whereas a couple of our flair players didn’t want to get that whack. That’s hard for me to take because if you’ve got so much ability you must be able to take it.”
POSTED: 10/02/2010 08:59:33
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