Gillingham will welcome back Mustapha Carayol for the visit of Accrington Stanley to Priestfield on Saturday, but could be missing some key players.

Carayol sat out the 2-2 draw at Bolton Wanderers last weekend through injury but returned as a substitute in the Papa John’s Trophy defeat to West Ham United on Tuesday.

Daniel Phillips and David Tutonda are expected to be sidelined until Christmas, whilst Alex MacDonald will also be out for at least a month.

That leaves Gills manager Steve Evans with limited options for the League One clash.

Speaking ahead of the game, Evans was pleased to have Carayol back and available, but hinted he may be missing other key names:

“Mustapha came through Tuesday fine; we are in good shape but missing some key players. We won’t worry about those, we’ll worry about the ones we have.”

“Accrington are doing incredibly well, and credit to the management team. This is a tough game for us. They are very dangerous opponents.”

“We have an opportunity for back-to-back home league wins. We said it would take 8 to 10 games to get going. If we can win tomorrow it would be 7 points from 9.”

“I think Accrington have settled now; they won at Charlton recently. Both teams tomorrow will be competitive. Conditions will be tricky.”

Accrington midfielder Joe Pritchard has been dealt another injury blow.

Pritchard made his comeback from an ankle injury for the Under-23s this week but pulled up with a hamstring problem.

Stanley are awaiting the results of a scan to discover the extent of the injury.

Joel Mumbongo, Harvey Rodgers and Joe Hardy are set to miss out again.

Picture supplied by Gillingham Football Club.