Crawley Town 1 Gillingham 2

Match 77/14/1186 - Saturday 28th March 2015 - League One

Crawley Town (0) 1 McLeod 63
Gillingham (1) 2 Dack 40, McGlashen 81
Att. 3,570

Entrance: £14 Senior
Programme: £3
Mileage: 88/5,686

Match Report

Gillingham broke through the 50-point threshold and with that achieved; the vast majority of supporters will give Justin Edinburgh the thumbs-up to Carry On Tinkering. Of course there are a few optimists out there that will still point to the possibility of making the play-offs with the deficit being only five points, but realistically that is an unlikely scenario.

Now we know, from the manager’s own words, that preparation has begun for next season, the benching of Cody McDonald didn’t appear as strange a choice as the previous Saturday when Luke Norris was preferred to John Marquis. Norris failed to impress against Colchester United, but his performance at Crawley was better.

Crawley, fighting a relegation battle, came into the game in good form having won three games in succession and climbing out of the bottom four in the process.

The shortest trip of the season brought out a 1,000-plus following for Gillingham and they enjoyed a first half in which their team dominated. Despite their superiority it took until the 40th minute to break down the Crawley defence. Bradley Dack, who had an eye-catching first half, latched onto a John Egan pass and skipped a couple of challenges before shooting across the face of the goal into the far corner.

If there is something you can guarantee about the Crawley striker, Izale McLeod, it is that he will score against Gillingham, he always does and this game proved no different. After 65 minutes, with very little appearing on, McLeod received the ball on the edge of the box and engineered a bit of space by side-stepping Egan to drill a shot past Glenn Morris. McLeod is the Gillingham fans’ pantomime villain, but, as usual, this was a quality finish.

Edinburgh responded by throwing McDonald into the fray and the ex-Burnley ‘keeper Brian Jensen made good saves from Doug Loft and Marquis as the visitors ramped up the pressure in search of a winner. The post denied Max Ehmer before, with nine minutes remaining, Dack stood up the perfect cross for the diminutive winger, Jermaine McGlashen to head home from close range.

Gillingham survived a scare at the death when Lanre Oyebanjo shot against the outside of a post, but to have been denied maximum points at that late stage would have been unjust.

It’s a nice easy trip to Crawley and there isn’t too much to dislike about them now that the Fat Scotsman has departed in search of the next pot of gold and the money has run out at the Broadfield Stadium. Personally, I hope they stay up.