Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Five wait for offers
Gillingham are to offer five of last season’s squad new deals but at least three are leaving. What they can offer to captain Max Ehmer, forwards Brandon Hanlan and Mika Mandron, along with midfielders Regan Charles-cook and Henry Woods will be dependent on a board meeting tomorrow (Friday). “I am hopeful we will keep all of them,” said Gills boss Steve Evans, who has spent the last few days meeting with players and his staff.
“Each of those lads will get an offer, whether it’s an offer that induces them to stay at the club we will see in time.”
With no firm date yet for a new season the Gills don’t want to lumber themselves down with a big wage bill.
The Gills now have just nine players contracted beyond the end of this month, including Barry Fuller and Lee Hodson. Fuller triggered another year on his deal after playing a certain number of games but has been told he can look elsewhere for football. Hodson has been told the same.
Players who aren’t being offered new deals are midfielders Ouss Cisse and Ben Pringle, along with the injured Mark Byrne, who has been invited back for pre-season, whenever that restarts.
Evans said: “The one thing for sure is that we cannot ask the football club in these current times to go and pay wages out when the season has not got a start date, that would be the worst business sense you have ever seen.
“I have explained it all to the players. There were only the couple I didn’t see and that was for geography reasons. Ben Pringle was with his family in the north west and you wouldn’t expect him to come down for a 20 minute meeting and Ouss Cisse was in France.
“The rest of them had a meeting, we gave them time, we told them what we thought, the good and the bad news. In respect of that little group (of five) we said to them, it is difficult with no date yet and it needs to go to the board to either support what I am thinking, or to amend. I don’t control the finances, I never have at any club I work for.
“Those five were straightforward in their own rights. Mika Mandron took longer than we thought to get him fit, I think by the time the season finished Mika was doing really well for us, he was just getting into his stride.
“Max for me has had his best season in a long time, that is because we had him playing a different way and I think Max said he has never enjoyed a season as much as the last one just finished. He credited myself and Rayns but I said to him when he was playing as well as he was, he deserved the credit. “Henry is a young lad, an under-23 player really. Regan needs to find more consistency and Brandon needs to find more goals. Both are good lads. All five of them are great lads.” On Fuller’s situation, he said: “He had a good season. He came in after signing an extra year and he trained with his heart on his sleeve. He had a number of outstanding performances, a few iffy ones.
“I think age was a factor and was catching him at times but that happens to all of us. “I loved his attitude. Barry had a clause in there which was agreed before I joined the club that if he played so many games he could activate another year and he has. I have absolutely no problem with that.
“He has got a fantastic attitude, we will welcome him back like we will everyone and we will shake his hand but I don’t forsee him playing too much football. There is no point me saying Barry has a big part to play next season because I wouldn’t be telling the truth. I think Barry respected that.”
Fuller picked up a knock in Gills’ last game before the season was stopped, at Sunderland, one which Evans said would have ruled him out for the remainder of the 2019/20 campaign.
Evans has said he will be looking at a younger core next season and is now waiting to see what kind of funds he will have at his disposal.
He said: “I think the chairman will always make the decision that is right for the football club. “When I joined it was about joining something that was going to be for some time, it was going to be a project.
“We have had a lot of work to do on the football infrastructure but I think every one of the players and every one of the staff behind the scenes would say it is a properly run football club.”
Along with the player departures Evans also had to let goalkeeper coach Simon Royce leave.