Southend United 0 Gillingham 1: Match reaction from Gills boss Neil Harris

Gillingham manager Neil Harris was pleased to see his team bounce back from a terrible start at Southend.

The Gills were second best early on against the non-league outfit but Harris reminded his players of his pre-match message, that this was one friendly where the result mattered.

“I asked for a complete shift in mentality,” he said.

“Pre-season has been about getting minutes, energy and working on patterns, with and without the ball. I addressed the boys on Friday after our final day of training for pre-season and said the mentality completely shifts, we would treat it like a league game.

“I wanted to win the game. I have not spoken about any results we have had over the course of pre-season, this was about winning and having that mindset and for 22 minutes until the drinks break I thought we were second best. We couldn’t get close to the ball, we got our shape completely wrong.

“We didn’t compete well enough and I reminded them what had been said, with a few choice words about winning mentality.

“From my perspective I thought we were poor with or without the ball for 22 minutes, we have been brilliant, we were excellent against Palace’s first team (on Tuesday), Portsmouth’s first team and Luton, we were excellent, somewhere along the way there was always going to be a bad half.

“It is my job to make us better, we adjusted after 22 minutes, we were better after that and the better team. I can’t fault my players in their attitude for flicking the switch from being terrible for 22 minutes to then being the better team after that.

“I was delighted with the clean sheet. We have not conceded goals really where we have been opened up, we have conceded goals by our own doing, that is where you could see a shift in mentality