The former Millwall striker joined the club in January 2022. He was unable to keep the Gills from escaping relegation from League One in that season.
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00:00 here at Priestfield Stadium. That press conference ended just over two and a
00:03 half hours ago. Keith Millen came and sat in the position that we usually see
00:07 Neil Harris sit on these usual Thursday afternoon press conferences following
00:12 the news that the former Millwall striker had been sacked from the club.
00:15 Millen up until today was part of the coaching team here. He was heading up the
00:20 the club's B team squad. We heard from the club just around about lunchtime
00:25 that Harris had departed. They said in a statement that the club now
00:29 wishes to go ahead in a different direction and will begin the process of
00:32 identifying a head coach to take the team forward. Now this has come as quite
00:36 of a shock to some fans and as well to the media. We were fully expecting this
00:41 morning for Neil Harris to to be there at the press conference. Now after this
00:46 statement was released obviously plans did start to change but let's hear from
00:50 Keith in that press conference today. The timing of it was a shock. I think it
00:55 was the timing but I've seen it before and it happened again. It doesn't always
01:02 reflect on on the results whether you're winning or losing. There's always a
01:07 reason isn't there? Well it should be a reason for it to happen. So it's a case
01:13 really of me picking up the pieces of where the players are. I'm not going to
01:18 be trying to motivate the players by saying let's do this for Neil. I just
01:22 don't think that's the sort of right, I wouldn't want that as a player, as a
01:25 motivation. So it's an awareness of what's happened and if it gives us a
01:32 little bit more of an edge come Saturday then that's a good thing and I'm sure
01:37 Neil would want that 100%. He would want the players to go out and perform and
01:41 try and win the game. Now as to why this has happened, well we don't really have
01:46 too much information at this point other than what the club has
01:49 released but if we look at the recent form you might start to raise some
01:53 questions. Gillingham haven't been able to win any of their previous three games.
01:57 They currently sit eighth in the League Two table but really if we think about
02:01 the form across the whole season that's not really reflective. Gillingham have
02:05 been quite successful in League Two so far this season compared to where they
02:09 were at the end of last season all the way down in 17th and actually eighth in
02:13 the table they're only four points away from being back up at the top where
02:17 we've already seen them this year. Now this huge sort of shift for the club
02:21 comes after Brad Gallinson took over in January of this year. We heard from the
02:25 American businessman earlier today on Twitter or X as it is called now. He
02:30 tweeted to say thank you to Neil and described him as one of the highest
02:34 quality individuals that he's ever met. No word as of yet on who will replace
02:40 him and of course we'll have all the updates here on Kent tonight but the
02:43 most important thing for this club is going into this weekend. They're going to
02:47 be up against MK Dons, of course recently relegated from League One so
02:50 potentially an opportunity to claw back a win but it all depends on how these
02:55 players are doing. Now we heard from Connor Masterson in the press
02:58 conference also today who explained just how the conversation went down with the
03:02 players. Yeah we came in this morning half ten expecting to meet at the games
03:07 the other night like we usually do and the gaffer just told us that he'd be
03:12 part ways with the club. So Neil was here this morning so he spoke to you this morning?
03:18 Yeah he did, he came into the dressing room and spoke to us and told them that
03:22 obviously he got sacked and it is what it is and we were all a bit shocked
03:27 obviously but this is football so...