Fleetwood boss Simon Grayson always believed winning run was coming

Town made it three League One wins in eight days with a 1-0 home victory over fellow mid-table side Gillingham on Tuesday.

Fleetwood had won only once in 14 league games prior to last week's victory at Lincoln City but are now just six points shy of a play-off place with 12 to play.

Grayson felt the win - secured thanks to Kyle Vassell’s second-minute penalty - was well deserved as the Gills were comfortably kept at bay.

The head coach said: “Of course we wanted to build on the two previous results, when we were very good in the two away games (also winning at Shrewsbury on Saturday), and we’ve done that.

“Out of our three games over the past week we’ve now secured three wins and two clean sheets.

“If you go back to the Accrington game before that, when we missed a penalty, we could have had four on the bounce, but I do think this run of results has been coming over a number of weeks.

“Almost all of our performances have been good since we came through the door.

“You can look back at the Accrington game, the Charlton game... even when you look at the games we lost at Plymouth and Sunderland, there wasn’t much in those games.

“I’m really delighted with the group. They’re working, striving, and we’ll be back in training in the morning getting to prepare for Blackpool at the weekend.”

Town got off to a dream when Vassell slotted home the match-winning spot-kick. It was the striker's second goal in successive games and he could have had another five minutes later, firing a deflected shot against the crossbar.

Jordan Rossiter also thumped the bar with a shot from halfway, and although Town probably ought to have increased their lead Grayson couldn’t fault his team.

“It was a really good overall performance against a strong Gillingham team,” he added.

“You know exactly what you’re going to get when you come up against Gillingham.

“You have to win your battles and pick up the scraps and second balls, and you have to be strong physically and mentally.

“Obviously we got off to a fantastic start with what I saw as a blatant penalty (for a push on Ged Garner) but later on we did well to take the sting out of the game.

“We knew they would have a right go at us in the second half and they did that, but we stood up firm and dealt with Gillingham’s corners, set-pieces and balls into the box.

“It was like Land of the Giants in there and we had to be tough physically, but it was also a good mental test passed too."

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