Sponsored by
Make Rovers home banker
Confident: Simon Gillett
DONCASTER Rovers’ midfielder Simon Gillett is hoping that the Royals don’t rule in Saturday’s Championship clash between the two Championship sides at the Keepmoat Stadium.
“Reading are obviously a good side but we are at home, where we’ve been doing quite well recently, and we want to continue that form,” said the former Southampton star.
“With the position we are in we need to pick up as many points as we can at home.
“We’ve taken 11 points from our last five home games.But if we are to get the nine wins that the manager feels we need to stay up, we also now that we need to start picking up some away wins and if not wins then at least a result.
“We went into Tuesday’s game at Hull aiming for three points. We had to settle for one but that was a still a good result. The thing that we didn’t want to happen was to come away empty-handed,” said Gillett who came on as a second half substitute.
“We’d lost our last six away games but when we looked back on the games there wasn’t much in them and that helped us to keep our heads high.
“Bad decisions from officials have cost us as have some silly errors, and we’ve got to eradicate them from our game.”
The game against Reading at the Madejski Stadium in September, which the Royals won 2-0, turned out to be manager Sean O’Driscoll’s last game in charge.
“I played that day and we didn’t play well - we want to try and put things right on Saturday,” said Gillett.
“We hadn’t won a game when we played them and they were going through a transitional stage having lost a couple of their best players.
“But they’ve turned it around and are going quite well.
“They’ve got someone with a lot of money coming in and they’ve made one or two signings and I would imagine that they’ll be looking at the play-offs.
“They’ve got some lively forwards. Church caused us some problems down there, so we need to keep them quiet.
“We also need to trouble their back-line. I don’t think that we had many shots and we didn’t create a lot go-forward in that game.
“That’s something that we need to do early on and show them that we are out to attack and to get some goals.
“We’ve been quite good at home and the fans have given us good support and I hope that they keep backing us and we keep turning it on.
“We need the fans to really get behind the club, not only on Saturday, but also in every game between now and the end of the season,
“The last thing you want is fans not coming to the game or not encouraging you if they do.
“I’d like to see us attracting a few more fans because it does make a big difference to the atmosphere if there is 10-11,000 there.
“I’d urge the public of Doncaster to come down and support their local team. We are fighting for our lives and we need all the help we can get and it would be great to see a full house there.
“There are a lot of tough games ahead but we’ve done well against the teams at or near the top, especially at home.
“It doesn’t really matter who you play; it’s all on the day.
“We have to do our best in every game. If we are at our best we’ve shown that we can compete with the best.”
Rovers midfielder Mark Wilson, who left the club by ‘mutual consent’ on Tuesday, has joined League Two promotion chasers Oxford United on a permanent deal.
“One of the main reasons for coming here was to try and help the club get promotion,” said Wilson, who had a loan spell at Walsall earlier in the season.
“You can see from the outside it’s a club growing in momentum.
“I’ve been at a club that has gone from strength to strength, which was great to be a part of, and hopefully, the same can happen here.
“I’m looking forward to it,” said Wilson, who will be 33 later this month.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Sheffield
Saturday 26 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 18 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: East
Your view
Please sign in to be able to comment on this story.