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Every Friday, Town Assistant Peter Shirtliff keeps you up to date with the week's goings on in and around The County Ground.

This week, he looks back on yet more weather affected preparations for a possible return to League One action this weekend......

It's been another tough week of trying to find somewhere to train, but we've managed to keep doing bits and pieces all week.

There was a bit of gym work, and some training on the Astroturf pitch at Cirencester which they've kindly let us use so we've been able to keep the boys busy.

It's been frustrating again really during the whole week. The second lot of snow we had during the week has proved to be a bit of a problem, but now the rain's coming hopefully we can have an outside chance of pitch thawing out and the game being on tomorrow.

It was a shame on about the snowfall on Tuesday night but we're not the only club to have had those problems, especially in this area so we're just going to have to get on with it.

At the end of the day we've not got the facilities that some of the bigger clubs have got so we've just got to do what we can do.

The Gillingham game is in the balance at the moment, but hopefully it will be on and we can get back to normal.

On MONDAY and TUESDAY we were on the Astro at Cirencester, playing a few small sided and working on a few structural things, and then had a hard session in the gym.

We put the boys through their paces physically and worked them pretty hard, which was the best we could hope for with the weather and the state the training pitch was in.

It was good that we managed to get those things done, but unfortunately there is only so much you can do, and the main thing we haven't been able to coach the structural team play element that is usually part of our training which has been the most frustrating thing.

We wanted to do some work in this department, but we trust the players to implement those sorts of things anyway and hopefully we can come through with the right result if the Gillingham game is on.

WEDNESDAY meant a lot of hard work from Danny in particular regarding the signing of Vincent Pericard. He's got a couple of other players on the go as well and hopefully one or two will come to fruition before the end of January which will strengthen the squad.

I think Vincent will prove to be a great signing for us. We know what he's about as he caused us a lot of problems in the game up at Carlisle earlier in the season.

He adds to the fire power to the strike force, and considering how well Charlie and Billy have been doing we have got what we want now, i.e competition for places which is especially crucial up front because goals win you games.

There was a very hard session for the boys at Next Generation on THURSDAY with Dave Morrison really coming into his own!

He has done really well in keeping the boys' fitness levels up during this period without games, and he's monitored them well which he needs to do, because it is almost 12 days since Fulham.

Unfortunately we haven't been able to get to the training ground today (FRIDAY), because the surface was not suitable to train on.

There is still a lot of compact ice there so we'll be up on the Cirencester Astro again working hard preparing for the game which we hope will be on tomorrow.

They said...

We didn't see it coming, but it seems a long time ago now, and we're looking much better than we did on that day.....

Shirtliff on Town's improvement since first game

The team are obviously frustrated that they haven't been able to get outside but they're playing well and look in good spirits at training. It's been hard for them but they're confident and hopefully they can take that into the game tomorrow, should it be played.

As far as Gillingham are concerned, they beat us first game of the season and beat us well. That was a bit of a wakeup call for one or two.

We didn't see it coming, but it seems a long time ago now and we're looking a much better team than we did on that day.

Gillingham have had an indifferent season, but are probably a bit better than the league table suggests so we'll have to be at our best, but if we get the three points, it stands us in very good stead to stay in the top six.

See you at the game,

Peter Shirtliff

.........and one more from you.................

With the number of postponements in the Football League at the moment, do think it is feasible to have a winter break during this period?

Jess Sadler, Chippenham

PS - "I don't think it's possible for the number of fixtures the lower leagues have got. It's possible for the Premier League and I think there's a case for that at Premier League level. But with the amount of fixtures we've got at our level I just don't think it could happen at all."