Gillingham captain Kyle Dempsey is facing surgery either today or tomorrow as problems mount even more for manager Steve Evans.

The Gills skipper who was injured at Hillsborough against Sheffield Wednesday will need minor surgery on a cartilage tear sometime this week.

The Gills boss, already missing many key players ahead of Cheltenham Town’s third visit of the season to Priestfield on Tuesday, admitted after Saturday’s defeat at Crewe that until the surgery he doesn’t know when his skipper will return.

Evans told reporters after the Crewe game, “I think he (Dempsey) is minimum three or four weeks, with a maximum eight to ten… that is where we are!”

“It was a little tear in his cartilage, and he will have an op on Monday or Tuesday. It will then be about speed of recovery and the one thing about Kyle is that he has the heart of the size of Big Ben!”

The club’s medical team haven’t set a return for Dempsey and won’t be able to until after surgery, and so the skipper joins an lengthening injury list – top scorer Vadaine Oliver, defenders David Tutonda and Rhys Bennett, Alex MacDonald, Olly Lee, Ben Reeves, Danny Lloyd as well as Dempsey are all on the treatment table and expected to be missing on Tuesday night, whilst Robbie McKenzie hobbled out of the Crewe game which was his return from injury!