Ahead of Gillingham’s trip to Shrewsbury Town this weekend, boss Steve Evans has been talking about his latest recruits – one a familiar face to the Priestfield faithful – before looking ahead to another tough road trip for the Gills…
“They’re two really good signings for us,” the Gills boss admitted. “They bring a real balance to the squad – Declan (Drysdale) is a young man who people have said is a centre half; we played him as a defensive holding midfield role in a game that we arranged at Peterborough in the week, and he was the best player on the pitch in the second half.”
“Mark Robbins (the Coventry manager) and myself chatted long and hard about where he could play, so it’s great that he’s a big, strong, commanding centre half who’s been able to not only have a presence but also to get his foot on the ball and play.”
“That’s good for us – I saw him play for Mark’s side in pre-season and watched him very interestingly in the Carabao Cup against us in which he was very good along with Josh (Eccles), and so once again we’re grateful to Mark Robbins and Coventry for that – he’s a player that can do that role really well but he’s also a very exciting dominant centre back as well!”
“Young Tommy (O’Connor) was outstanding for us last season – he played in a number of positions – left back when he had to; left side of a back three which he’s very comfortable at. For Southampton, he’s played a lot of games central midfield, either pushed on as an eight or defensively as a six – he gives us a really good balance – the two signings have really epitomised what we’re about, which is young hungry players and a real varied ability about where they can play!”
With the transfer window closing next week, Evans said. “I had a good meeting with the Chairman this week, and he said that if the right player pops up – and he’s the right one – then we’ll discuss it.”
“We’ve got three or four in the treatment room which doesn’t help us. They’re getting back rapidly quickly now so we have good variability in the squad now, so we’ll take check of it in during next week.”
“We’ll go to Shrewsbury at the weekend and then to Ipswich in the Leasing.com which we’ll make lots and lots of changes for regardless of how it goes at Shrewsbury as it’s not a priority competition for us – so by Wednesday or Thursday next week, I’ll be in a position to sit with the board to look at the current status in the treatment room and then just look around the shape and the team and the squad to see if we need anything position wise. But as the Chairman said if there’s an exciting one there, do it!”
Ahead of the trip to Shrewsbury, the Gills boss agreed that the having a week off will hopefully extend his selections options. He said, “It’s helped enormously with minutes, especially with the game at Peterborough. That gave us the opportunity to get seven or eight players to play the ninety minutes and they haven’t had many ninety minutes since last March – it was really essential that we got that into them, but they did and they were able to get on the training pitch and do some good work towards Saturday and hopefully we’ll be ready for what’s going to be a really tough game.”
“Our treatment room is busy, but the injuries are getting to the stage when they’re clearing up pretty quickly. Christian Maghoma is back in the squad after testing negative for COVID19 and came through 90 minutes and did very well – he came through as solid as Christian has been and if he hadn’t had the scare he would have started last week.”
“The decision will come down to me if Scott Robertson is involved – his was really just fatigue! When a young player tells you that he’s played seven or eight games in a year, and then plays seven or eight ninety minutes in five weeks and demonstrates what a young man puts his body through; Kyle Dempsey is getting nearer and maybe even right for Oxford a week on Saturday which will be great for us; Matty Willock could be available after the weekend – he won’t make Saturday, and the rest we know about with Stuart (O’Keefe) being longer term!”