Gillingham are firing on all cylinders, says boss Steve Lovell

Gillingham manager Steve Lovell credited his side’s 2-1 win over Northampton on Tuesday to a “magnificent” first-half performance.

Dominant from the word go, Josh Parker blasted Gillingham into a sixth-minute lead at Sixfields before Tom Eaves poked in Luke O’Neill’s low cross to make it 2-0 in the 18th minute.

The visitors could have added more by the time Ash Taylor headed one back for Northampton but there was to be no way back for the home side, who had Hildeberto Pereira sent off after the final whistle.

“We played very well,” said Lovell. “Apart from the Wigan game, we’ve come our firing on all cylinders in all our away matches and the game was won in the first half an hour.

“I thought we were magnificent in the first half. Northampton couldn’t cope with us, they weren’t in the game and we could have had three or four before half-time.

“It’s very pleasing and I said to them at half-time that they would come at us in the second half and they did that so we had to weather the storm and I tinkered with the formation again.

“It was a great three points. When they play like that it’s a pleasure to watch and the only disappointing thing was that we didn’t get more goals.

“But the main thing is to create chances and play good football and the boys were in control. That was the case in the first half and we hung on at the end.”

Northampton manager Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink agreed with his counterpart that it was in the first 45 minutes when the game was won and lost.

“The first half is where it went wrong,” he said. “We just didn’t look like playing football whatsoever and it was very ease for them to get in behind us with simple long balls.

“We couldn’t deal with their long balls and it was as direct as that. I don’t know why but it’s a big disappointment for me, especially after the Saturday game.

“We took a lot of steps forward at the weekend and, after the Rochdale home game, we wanted to put things right but to have a performance like that is just not good enough.

“We didn’t create as many chances. Everything was a little bit too rushed and we didn’t stay calm enough and weren’t patient enough.

“We had a few moments but they weren’t clear-cut moments where we should have scored. We were the better team in the second half and it was a lot better although we couldn’t have got much worse.

“The second half was 10 times better but we weren’t calm and patient with our passing.”