Gillingham manager Steve Evans has spoken of his frustration at not being able to do his job the way he wished due to the current pandemic.

It’s been a strange couple of months for many lower League professional clubs with very few making the number of signings that you’d normally see by the penultimate weekend in July – not of course that anything is currently “normal” in the current climate.

We’ve been talking to Gillingham boss Steve Evans and we asked the Gills boss about how in these troubled times football managers can be expected to do their jobs “normally” – Evans as usual was extremely honest as he told us, “Despite everything, we’re still following pretty much the same format of how we’re going about things – our first meetings are really talking about football; talking about systems of play; talking about where the player would fit in – where we’ve identified them from and where they would fit in our plan – and the only thing that’s delayed it very quickly after that if you’ve got the right feeling, the Chairman and Chief Exec would be dealing finance within a couple of days.”

“We’ve explained to the players who we’ve met that the offers will come from us when our Chairman gets a start date from the Football League because that would be appropriate and not putting the club at any risk at all and that’s most important.”

“So our talks so far have followed the normal format that we would in pre-season, it’s just a little bit more delayed in between, but we tell all the players that if they get an offer and go and sign now and it’s good for them and their families then go and do it!”

“We’re living in unprecedented situation at the moment, but we’ve still got to do our job of identifying the players and speaking to them to see if we can bring them to Priestfield.”

With Max Ehmer having already left and Brandon Hanlan, Mikael Mandron and Harry Woods still waiting for a firm new contract offer, we asked the Gills boss for an update – he told us, “we’re in talks with them all the time – the Chairman’s had a chat with a couple of them too!”

“The boys know the situation – the one thing that we cannot allow ourselves to do is to become a Bury, become a Wigan and I think that there may be more clubs the way things are happening.”

“I’m looking at certain clubs signing players already in the same week that they’re making staff redundant in the same week or the week before announcing multi million pound losses, I just wonder what strategy these clubs have in place, whereas the strategy set by Paul Scally is that we have a number of scenarios – we can plan without supporters; we can plan with supporters; but the one thing we do need is a start date to do it properly.”

“So, we’re in terrific shape and I just hope that all the other clubs are in as good a shape as we are going forward. I think that every football club is entitled to have its’ own strategy, and in fairness to the clubs that have done some early business they appear to have some fairly wealthy owners.”

“It takes a bit longer with any loan players as you have to deal with the lad’s clubs first and foremost before you have to deal with the lads themselves and their representatives.”

“I’ve had two very good meetings last week which has been followed up with Zoom calls this week with sporting directors and head of recruitments at a couple of Premier League clubs and they’ve gone really well – you never know how if it’s a hundred percent well unless you get the nod to speak to the player with a view to them joining you on loan.”

“We’ve certainly had the meetings as the Chairman says, “go about your business Steve, line it up and be ready to go” and hopefully we’ll get a date and be able to move forward very quickly.”

“I’m like every other manager who’s below the Championship, so frustrated about not being able to go to work. I’ve been fortunate that I’ve been able to watch the odd game; I’ve been fortunate that I’ve been able to go and watch the odd training session albeit very much at a distance.”

“It’s all very frustrating and we all can’t wait to get back into work and doing what we all wake up for every morning which is to play football.”