Gillingham boss Neil Harris has strengthened his striking options with the signing of Ashley Nadesan from Crawley Town for an undisclosed fee. 

Talking to KSN about his new man at the Clubs annual press day, boss Neil Harris told us, “He’s one of the best I’ve seen in the lower Leagues at timing his runs getting behind or down the sides of teams, and I felt at times last year that we were a little bit one dimensional in our play, but we still were missing some of the natural timings that hopefully he’ll give us.” 

“There will be time for different combinations of the strikers. Ash comes in and played unbelievably well with Tom Nichols over a period of time, they had a really good partnership at Crawley! He’ll definitely be able to play with Ollie Hawkins, we’ve already seen Tom and Ollie be a really effective pair!”  

“First and foremost, hes a different type of striker to what we have already. We’ve got big Ollie who at six foot six does everything is says on the tin and competes for it all; Nico is technically an excellent footballer and huge goal threat as well!

“We just felt that in periods we’ve really lacked the options of someone who’s really got that pace to run behind. He’ll come in with League Two experience and a player who I feel is still developing and become a better and more prolific goal-scorer than he has been, but I think comes with style of play and his strengths as well.

“We just feel that there are going to be a lot of games this year where we’re going to have to play in behind teams and get after the ball. Ashley is quick and athletic as well as being quite clever as well as he’s good at pressing.” 

Harris then implied that perhaps there could still be fresh faces before that opening day trip to Stockport in ten days’ time.

He said, “But then there might be room for something different as well. We’re still searching for top end of the pitch and are very conscious that we were a “little” bit short of goals last year particularly before Christmas,” the boss said grimacing, “we were short of a lot of things!

“But second half of the season we scored a lot more goals but if we’re going to be in the top reaches of the Division, we’re going to need different avenues to be created and score goals.

“So ultimately the top end of the pitch is the hardest positions to recruit – they come at a premium and are very sort after. We’ve had to be extremely patient with Ashley, we’ve been extremely patient with other targets, it has been well publicised that we’ve missed out on one or two because we’re looking for the right blend!”