Gillingham players set to start their pre-season training in a fortnight ahead of friendly matches against Millwall and Watford

Gillingham’s players have two more weeks off before the hard work starts.

Boss Mark Bonner has resisted the temptation to call the players back before July 1 and feels six weeks is ample time to get them prepared.

The Gills ended their 2023/24 season at home to Doncaster Rovers on April 27 and so the players have already had seven weeks off to recover, with two more to go.

Bonner is glad to have a more traditional summer break, however, saying: “Monday, July 1 is the first day back. It is a real clean cut.

“July 1 always used to be the start of pre-season, years ago, and then because of Covid start dates and end dates and the Euros and because of the Qatar World Cup, football seasons have been all over the place recently.

“This is the first year we start on August 10, not like July 30 or the Carabao Cup before that being the first game. We are in a normal season again, which is brilliant.

“We have six weeks to prepare ourselves for the season and we start with a couple of tough games here.”

The Gills will play Championship sides Millwall (July 13) and Watford (July 20) before away games against Dartford, Southend and Woking in preparation for the season kicking off on Saturday, August 10.

Looking ahead to those first two friendly matches, Bonner said: “When you play good teams early on in front of crowds everyone will judge us after working together for (two weeks) but that’s fine.

“During the six weeks of pre-season I can see the players, build up relationships, get (them) fit, get organised.

“I have seen teams have good pre-seasons and start badly and bad pre-seasons and start well. I don’t think there is a formula in terms of results, there is just a process.

“‘Have you got players starting to work towards what you