JUSTIN JOY AT ROBUST GILLS BOYS
JUSTIN Edinburgh felt his patchwork Gillingham side made a real statement of intent as they got their promotion charge back on track at the expense of Crewe.
Dominic Samuel’s close-range finish got the hosts off to the perfect start after seven minutes, his seventh of the season.
An own goal from Jon Guthrie and a late third from Josh Wright – his first ever Gillingham goal – wrapped things up for Edinburgh, who has had to contend with a string of recent injury setbacks.
“We changed the formation of the team and I thought it gave us some really good rewards,” he said.
“We spoke during the week to try and get our best available 11 players out onto the pitch and play a system that suited that 11.
“The attitude of the players was first class, the result was excellent and I think that was one of the best results all season and since I’ve been here.
“We felt that with three at the back it allowed Jermaine McGlashan and Brennan Dickenson to have that licence on the wing.
“Today highlighted so much of what our squad is about because there are some players who haven’t played probably as much as they would like to and performed brilliantly.
“It’s a fantastic achievement for the club to still be in the position that we are with the amount of injuries that we’ve got.”
Gillingham started on the front foot and on 12 minutes Luke Norris headed back towards the six-yard box and Samuel got ahead of his man to head in from close range.
Despite not offering much going forward during the first 45 minutes Crewe almost went in at half-time level when Zoumana Bakayogo rattled the crossbar from 20 yards.
Crewe improved after the break but on 61 minutes Samuel crashed a shot from inside the box against the woodwork and Guthrie was unable to adjust his body in time to clear, inadvertently tapping into his own net.
And in injury time Wright found the net via the post after a McGlashan pull-back for his first goal since scoring against Gillingham for Leyton Orient last season.
“I thought we were good in the second half and we just conceded a real sloppy goal in the first half which we seem to have done for most of the season,” Crewe manager Steve Davis said.
“We had a great chance to make it 1-1 when Tom Hitchcock went through and screwed it wide when he should have done better.That was a big turning point of the game.
“We knew we’d have a spell in the game and at 1-0 there’s always a way back in but at 2-0 it’s always difficult to turn that around. “We had to have a go and leave the backdoor open at times because we need to win a game and sometimes you can lose by a bigger margin trying to win the game.”