Allen salutes Gills commitment

Allen: Pleased with performance

Martin Allen praised his Gillingham side's character having watched them bounce back from their first away loss of the season.

Allen's men went down 2-1 at Torquay in midweek but responded in the perfect fashion as debutant Romain Vincelot scored the only goal of the game in the first half.

Wimbledon battled to the end and dominated the second half albeit without looking overly threatening as Gillingham stood firm, moving five points clear at the summit of the table.

"I thought it was a great performance, the last home game they had I think they were 3-0 up after half-hour, you can see why," Allen said. "They are a strong team, well organised and I thought all our players put in tremendous courage. It's not easy coming back from Torquay at five o'clock in the morning so backs to the wall, solid defending, we stood firm and sometimes the season's going to be like that.

"We stood firm and stood up to the test they presented; every effort against us was long range so fair play to all our players for the commitment and strength of mind to defend that solitary goal.

"Right from the very start it was horrendous conditions and it didn't make it easy to play to be honest, the wind was a massive factor, but it was a quality finish from the lad so that was enough to win it."