Tom Eaves is back at MEMS Priestfield and in KSN’s briefing with boss Gareth Ainsworth, the manager has been explaining how the move came about, although the new man may not be involved in Saturday’s home clash with Newport County.
“Well, it was the worst kept secret for the last couple of weeks, wasn’t it?” Ainsworth joked!
“Tom Eaves back to Priestfield!”
“He’s definitely someone who will be feared in League Two – scoring ten goals in League One last year with Northampton and having and has a really good career in the Championship scoring goals… Gillingham though is still the best spell of his career with forty goals in two seasons and we hope that that will continue.”
“He is a great, great guy; what with missing Will (Goodwin) for the second time last week was tough to see – we want to make sure that with Kadeem (Harris) and Ronan (Hale) and the other forwards being fit we need people available to play…”
“Tom is a little bit behind in playing time as he hasn’t played a full game since he played for Northampton last year!”
“He has been training with the PFA and is fit, but then there is fit and there is match fit, so please don’t be shouting for Tom Eaves after ten minutes on Saturday because it won’t be happening – we will play this one very carefully, but it gives us something different!”
“He’s different from the style we’ve been employing and I think that that is something good to have – to have the Plan B if you like – I’ve been known for my bog strikers in the past and thought I had changed a bit going “small” this year, but we have saved one for a bit and now Tom’s come in!”
There’s a saying in football that players should never go back to a Club when they’ve been successful there – we asked Ainsworth about that; he said, “I don’t know if it’s true or not as I did sign the same guy at Wycombe four times and he’s still there – I know I signed Jason McCarthy and David Wheeler both more than once at the same Club – I’d say it’s about the player, it really is.”
“I think that what Tom has said really well is don’t have expectations as they were seven years ago, it’s different now, he’s a different player, but he wants to come back in and show the appreciation of what Gillingham gave him and he’s going to fight and scrap for everything…”
“I think he will score some goals especially at this level! I think Never Go Back is a bit of a cliche and one of these funky things that people like to say…”