Gillingham boss Steve Evans has been in reflective mood this week – reflecting on the closing of the transfer window as he still looks for a new face or faces, before looking at the weekend’s home game with Oxford United.

It’s usually one that supporters look forward to, but this year’s visit will be so very different.

The Gills boss was first asked about the Deadline Day stories about Connor Ogilvie possibly moving to the Scottish Premier. “Not a chance – he’s staying!” Evans declared before continuing.

“It was, what I would describe as, a top, top football club and their manager called me and asked if we would be prepared to sell and said a figure.”

“I replied that it was unlikely, but I’ll come back to you as I have to take the decision to the boss. He said, “do you want him?” “of course, I do” “tell them no!” and that was that!”

“It was a two-minute conversation about Connor and another ten minutes between me and the other manager as I know him very well! Connor is a part of what we’re trying to do going forward, we’re trying to bring a young squad together, he’s very young himself, we’re trying to bring a young squad together and level them out and have a good season.”

Evans went on, “We all live in the real world that everyone has his price, I can remember speaking to Darragh MacAnthony back in the summer and we were speaking about Toney who Darragh spent good money on signing as he always does and I can remember him saying to me that there will be a day that someone gives a price that will tick that box and it happened, and you’ve seen that around football at the top-level in the last few days.”

“Everyone has their price and I suppose that our Chairman will have a market view for Connor. But he’s told me that he doesn’t have to go anywhere as we’re trying to build.”

Asked if he would like any additions before the domestic window closes next week, the Gills boss admitted, “there may still be one, at a push two.”

“We’re really down in terms of head count with regards to the players who aren’t quite with us yet, we’ve had three or four back in training this week, but they won’t be ready for Saturday.”

“We’ve been patched up now for some weeks, but that has also given players the opportunity to come in and play, but I’d like to think that maybe with a little bit of luck two weeks down the line we’ll be having twenty players available to us, which will be a luxury!”

“I don’t really want to go down the loan market as we already have six in the building, I think if you take the law of averages that if you have six, there’s always one who is struggling for form, maybe struggling with a knock and different things!”

“I’d rather sign an eighteen year old this season rather than a thirty year old because the strategy of the football club was to be younger and leaner and meaner, I think we’ve shown that in the early part of the season!”

Speaking of his squad going into the weekend, Evans said, “We hope to see Kyle Dempsey on the grass this week, but will he be ready? We hope to see Scott Robertson on the grass this week, but will he be ready? Matty Willock back on the grass will be very tired after Ipswich which you would expect after being out for a month, one or two of the others have seasonal colds, so we have to be mindful of that we’ll see how they trained Thursday before seeing how they are before the weekend.”

“I’m sure other clubs have similar issues as well, we’re certainly down and they’re four or five that we would love to have available! And we’re also going to be missing Tommy O’Connor who is away on international duty, but we knew that if we signed him, after all you don’t get called up playing under 23 football, he’s a great kid and very proud of representing his country, so he went with our very best wishes!”

Looking to Saturday’s game at Priestfield, Evans said, “Oxford have lost to the best in the division so far, Lincoln and Hull. One thing that they’ve got is good resources and they’ve spent very well and have an outstanding squad, a very capable manager – a good football club.”

“So we’ll have to be at our very, very best on Saturday to get something out of the game and probably have to be at our season’s best to get the three points.”

“I think we’ve had a really good start to the season, I think it becomes an outstanding start if we can get something out of the game at the weekend. This is a new group with the average age in the group by far the youngest in the Football League, they’re young, they’re learning and developing!”