Gillingham face Rochdale this weekend for the second time in three weeks with the end of the January transfer window looming large.

This week Mark Marshall’s contract was not renewed by Steve Evans and the winger has duly left Priestfield for pastures new.

It was a tough decision for the club’s management team but one that was taken for footballing reasons as assistant manager Paul Raynor explained in this week’s press briefing at Priestfield.

“Mark has only started three times for us since the start of the season,” Raynor admitted, “and whilst he has come off the bench on numerous occasions and made an impact, we’ve got to look at utilising the funds available for us on someone who may well start, on someone who may well start more than Mark, who can fill that void, but by the end of the window!”

“I’m not sure if it’s going to happen, in what we can get in terms of, but we need to be fair to Mark as he was becoming very frustrated as he’s not getting any younger and was desperate to start some more games.”

“It’s just utilising the squad as best we can and hopefully bringing someone else in.”

“The Manager and Chairman are looking into more deals, which is why I’m speaking to you now”, Raynor joked, “It’s an ongoing process at this time in the window. It just takes one deal to go through to start the domino effect, and things will fall into place.”

Going into the weekend, the Gills have only one injury worry and that’s Tom O’Connor and his hamstring strain.

“We’ve had Tom’s scan back and it wasn’t as bad back as we first feared,” Raynor confirmed.

“But he’s still a doubt for the weekend. If it had been a bad one, it would have been either four to six weeks, so hopefully we can get Tom back in a couple of weeks time.”

“It does of course open the door for someone like Ben Pringle who has been patient – he’s another one who has been waiting for a chance to get in the starting eleven – people earn their shirts by merit and if they put in the performance, they will keep the shirts.”

“Mark played very well in training coming up to this week as have others who have been unlucky and have been training week in, week out”.

“We’re a team picking up results and as such the sides have stayed more or less same, but now Tom looks like bouncing out, there could be a space and I’m sure that Ben will feel he could come into contention as Matty Willock and others.”

“Matty certainly is knocking the door to come in Saturday! But let’s not forget that we’re at home to Shrewsbury on Wednesday, I’m pretty sure that Matty will feature at some stage.”

“Regan Charles-Cook trained exceptionally well this week and has caused teams real problems – and he’s chomped at the bit for another chance to have his go as it were… we haven’t got a small squad so – I could go on, we haven’t got a massive squad, so we’ll just wait and see just who will be in contention to start come Saturday afternoon.”

Raynor also acknowledged that Spotland isn’t the happiest of hunting grounds for the Gills with each of the last three visits losing 3-0.

“We would have liked to have won a couple more than the games that we’ve drawn, but now is the time to push on into another vital, vital period for us.”!

Picture supplied by Gillingham Football Club.