Bromley 2-1 Gillingham

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Is it time for Kent to embrace Bromley as their premier football club?

Wednesday night saw the Ravens claim their fourth league win of the season with a battling but fully deserved win over Gillingham.

Join me as I reflect on The Good, The Bad and The Ugly from Bromley’s 2-1 home win over the Gills.

Have a read and let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

The team vs Gillingham

The Good

Make that only five defeats in seventeen league games.

This performance felt like everything that’s good about Bromley when they’re approaching their best: Uncompromising in their thirst for the battle, winning second balls, being hard to break down, and taking their chances when they arrive.

This will feel like a one-sided assessment, but Bromley were the better side in all departments.

Don't believe me? Think back across the 90 minutes and ask yourself how many clear-cut chances did Gillingham create? One? They can have very few complaints about how this result panned out.

Fresh off his good performance against Solihull Moors, Omar Sowunmi followed it up with a League Two season high of twenty clearances in the game. His chase and block on Elliott Nevitt in the first half was a brilliant piece of defending that was as critical as anything else to the final result.

A small number of Bromley fans are still looking for confirmation bias where Omar is concerned, but at this juncture, it is okay to give Jack his jacket. Omar is in the side on merit and has earned the right to the shirt. Are you not entertained?

None of this is to say that we shouldn’t praise the silent assassins.

Kamarl Grant, Idris Odutayo, and Grant Smith are consistency personified, but because they aren’t as obviously stand-out as others, we can sometimes forget just how good they are. None of them put a foot wrong here.

I was particularly impressed with how Bromley looked in a back four that featured Carl Jenkinson (constantly barking orders) at right back, Sowunmi and Grant in the middle, and Odutayo as a more auxiliary left back.

Andy spoke at full-time about having a more positive and progressive shape at home. Against Gillingham, the back-four setup allowed Imray to play as a winger, and it also gave Congreve and Whitely license to impact the game behind Michael Cheek. Bromley looked more threatening going forward as a result.

Given its success, this begs the question of whether we will see this shape more often at home.

It was notable to see Andy Woodman praise Jude Arthurs after the game. I’ve told this story before, but when Jude debuted for Bromley as a teenager, former Bromley coach Hugo Langton told me that Jude would play in the Football League one day.

It is easy to forget that Jude is only 23. A growing number of Bromley fans consider him to be the most unsung member of the squad and one of the first names on their team sheet.

No one seemingly runs or scraps as much as Jude, and I was glad for him that his first-ever EFL goal was the winner. How far can he go in the game? No one ever talks about his upward mobility, but could he go further?

Lastly, a word for Cameron Congreve. He finally got the monkey off his back with what he will feel is his first meaningful contribution in a Bromley shirt.

There can be no doubt over Cameron’s technical ability, but he has taken time to find his feet and his best role in the system.

He has good close control, but his decision-making has to be both quicker and more clinical. Wednesday night was one of his better games on that front. Hopefully, this will be the moment that really kickstarts Cameron’s season.

I have to say that given the amount of money that has been spent on the Gillingham squad, I was shocked at how subdued and average they were.

They looked like a side that had lost six of their last eight fixtures; playing without the tempo required to force a victory away from home.

The only player who stood out for me was Jayden Clarke. I thought his toe-to-toe battle with Danny Imray was a good watch in the first half. Clarke offered Gillingham a genuine attacking threat down the left.

Clarke was playing non-league football two years ago for Dulwich Hamlet. He represents yet more evidence that if Football League clubs are prepared to do their homework, there are a lot of gems to mine further down the football pyramid.

The Bad

What is the capacity at Bromley? Once again we had a situation where a game was declared a sell-out but it was visibly not sold out.

For what it’s worth, it did look like one of our better attendances of the season, but I am now perplexed as to what is going on.

Assuming the capacity is over 4,000, and the attendance was given as 3,438, where exactly are the 500-odd fans?

How many fans bought season tickets with the intention of only using them about seven times a season?

Is Bromley so wealthy a borough that 500-odd people have the disposable income to buy a Bromley season ticket and use it only when they feel like it?

The Ugly

I meant to write an article on this matter but simply cannot find the time in between work.

A few weeks ago, Besart Topallaj joined Sutton United on a two-month loan with a view to extending it to the end of the season should it suit all parties.

In a nutshell, I take it to mean that Bes is more than likely leaving Bromley and we won’t see him back in white unless there is a major injury crisis before the end of January.

I don’t blame Bes for seizing the chance to go and play some football. Ex-Millwall player Steve Morison is the Sutton gaffer and, assuming he’s firing on all cylinders, Bes will be almost guaranteed a game at Gander Green Lane.

Sutton are targeting an immediate return to League Two, so it’s a no-brainer for Bes.

The deeper question is what does Andy have up his sleeve?

He has always wanted two good players for each position, but keeping talented understudies happy is a tough act, particularly when the player in front of them isn’t putting a foot wrong.

However, after seventeen games in League Two, Andy has probably identified the weaknesses in his team and will be looking at ways to strengthen those areas.

Newcastle United away notwithstanding, the magic money tree isn’t suddenly going to appear, so he has to be creative with how he makes improvements.

Freeing up wages in one or two places could allow Andy to bring in top-quality elsewhere.

If I’m right about that, which position would you strengthen first and why?

Get at me in the comments below.

Match ratings

Grant Smith (8)

Carl Jenkinson (8)

Omar Sowunmi (9)

Kamarl Grant (8)

Idris Odutayo (8)

Danny Imray (7)

Jude Arthurs (8)

Ben Thompson (7)

Corey Whitely (7)

Cameron Congreve (7)

Michael Cheek (7)

Subs:

Olufela Olomola for Cameron Congreve 67’ (7)

Callum Reynolds for Carl Jenkinson 68’ (7)

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Thanks for taking the time to read the match synopsis above.

Please note all match photographs in this article are by Martin Greig - please follow him on Twitter here

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