STIMSON: MY BOYS GAVE ME ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING
Sunday 13 December
After seeing the Gills notch up their tenth away defeat of the season, manager Mark Stimson was still in a positive mood when interviewed by BBC Radio Kent at the final whistle.
He commented, “Overall I can’t fault the players who we had available for effort and desire. I think they gave me absolutely everything. We were without a few players today for many reasons and the one’s that stepped in played with a lot of pride and possibly at the end of the day that bit of quality showed at the end what Huddersfield have got.”
Stimson (pictured above with Simon Royce) confirmed that Simon Royce was the player involved in a car accident earlier in the week and commented, “His knee is in a bad way and he’s got a bit of a bad neck as well. He’s had a scan on his knee and we shall get the results of that early next week.”
He continued, “He’s also had X-Rays on his neck. I’m praying he’ll only be out for a couple of weeks but who knows and until we get the scan results we’ll have to wait and see.”
The Gills manager though praised the performance from his stand in keeper by saying, “I thought Alan Julian (right) today was outstanding.
A couple of free-kick saves were excellent, his kicking was spot on and couldn’t have done anymore as one save at point blank was something Simon Royce would have clapped him for if he’d been here.”
Commenting on the absence of influential midfielder Curtis Weston, Stimson said, “Curtis unfortunately had some bad news involving his family and so he has had to stay away and spend some time with them this weekend, but I’m hoping he’ll be back next weekend.”
He added, “He was another player we missed because his attacking power plus his pace through the middle of the pitch might have caused them some problems. This is the only time when family problems come before football and you have to be realistic about that.”
Meanwhile Terriers boss Lee Clark gave his assessment of the match when speaking to the HTFC Official website when saying, “I thought that we gave away a poor goal but we created lots of chances. I didn't think that our general performance was that good but we've won the game, but I've said to the players and the staff that I've seen lots of teams not play well and win games.”
He continued, “Even though we weren't at our most fluent, we created lots and lots of chances. I thought that when we were missing them in the last 15 to 20 minutes of the game, that it might come back to haunt us but fortunately it didn't and we won and it's another three points.”
Clark added, “I thought the lads at the back handled the change well when they brought McCammon on. Alex has had a free-kick to save and their goal, but I can't remember too many things for him to do. I thought the defence was resolute, but we didn't mix our game up enough today.”