Ebbsfleet United manager Danny Searle prepared to start National League campaign without striker Rakish Bingham if he needs extra time to recover from pre-season injury

Ebbsfleet boss Danny Searle won’t rush Rakish Bingham - even if it means the striker misses the start of the season.

Bingham will miss a large chunk of pre-season after picking up an injury in the Fleet’s opening friendly at Punjab United last week.

The 30-year-old forward could yet declare himself fit for the National League opener at Gateshead on August 10 but Searle is not going to force the issue.

“There’s no need to rush anything,” said Searle. “It’s not good but it’s not as bad as I thought it was. I’m still really not happy about it (the challenge) and I need to stop watching it back as it makes me a little bit more angry. He’s going to miss a little bit of time.

“We don’t know yet [about August 10]. He’s going to miss a chunk. If he does what he can do, we could see him. I am going to err on the side of caution and say probably not.

“We need to look after him properly. It’s not like last season when we had the situation with Dom Samuel and we needed him back quick as we were fighting for our lives.

“We’ve got a whole marathon ahead of us so at the risk of putting someone in danger, for the sake of 30 or 60 minutes of football at the start of the season, there’s no point.”

Searle confirmed he would still like to bring another striking option to the club, regardless of the severity of Bingham’s injury.

He’s keen on adding more competition with Bingham competing alongside fellow forwards Dominic Samuel, Dominic Poleon and Nathan Odokonyero.

“I’ve made it quite clear that we’d probably like to do another forward anyway,” stated Searle. “I like competition, we’ve got good competition in a lot of places.

Read more: Fleet make eighth summer signing

“Has it accelerated it a bit? Yes, we know they need to be in before