Gillingham (0) 1 McDonald 47
Bristol City (1) 3 Flint 34 Smith 44 Wagstaffe 55
Att. 6,216
Entrance: Season Ticket
Programme: £3
Mileage: 52/3,814
Match Report
Gillingham’s match against league leaders Bristol City is one such instance. Prior to kick-off, it didn’t take a football genius to realise that despite City being short of their two principle goalscorers in Aaron Wilbraham and Kieran Agard, they should have more than enough ability in the squad to maintain their position at the top of the table.
Football can be very exciting when matches don’t go to form, but they can be equally quite boring when the expected manifests itself.
Cody McDonald raised the level of excitement with an individual goal a couple of minutes into the second period to half the deficit but those hopes were quickly extinguished within eight minutes when Scott Wagstaff restored Bristol City’s two goal advantage.
When there is little to write about, it can be quite interesting to gauge the feelings of Gillingham supporters through the window of social media and they are not a happy bunch. Two successive away wins have kept the club above the relegation line but a home form that reads one league win in seven games can only lead to discontent with Peter Taylor taking the brunt of the criticism. At the last home game he was subjected to abuse, and whilst none was reported after this game, I cannot imagine there was not the odd disgruntled voice directed at him.
Taylor opted to go with five at the back including playing Jake Hessenthaler at right back, for home matches this is perceived as negative by many supporters. The three in the middle were initially matched up with three from Bristol City, but as Gillingham sank deeper and deeper towards their own penalty area, the visiting full backs were virtually redundant and pressed on into midfield leaving Gillingham hopelessly outnumbered in that area.
Bristol City finally took the lead after 34 minutes of largely one-way traffic. Jay Emmanuel-Thomas had a goal ruled out and Luke Freeman and Marlon Pack brought saves before a corner from Freeman was headed across the face of goal by Aden Flint for Matt Smith to head in from close range.
A second, killer goal came a couple of minutes prior to the break when Greg Cunningham was allowed to run unchallenged down the left hand side before delivering a cross that, it would nice to say evaded the Gillingham defenders, but truth is none of them barely raised an effort to intercept it, leaving Smith to tap home.
McDonald’s run from the inside right channel to the edge of the box and finish with a crisp shot into the far corner raised spirits and hopes of a comeback but when Freeman deftly back-heeled into the path of Wagstaff who finished with a fine curling shot into the top corner, the game was over.
Loud voices of derision rang around Priestfield and the inquest on Taylor was about to begin once more on social media. As this is to be published a couple of days after the event, all is now irrelevant because, as of lunchtime on New Year’s Eve, Peter Taylor was no longer the manager of Gillingham Football Club.
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