Gillingham’s week off should benefit the likes of Ethan Coleman, Robbie McKenzie, Armani Little and Tim Dieng

A full week of training has come at a good time for Gillingham, according to the manager.

Mark Bonner’s side lost for the second time in five days on Saturday, beaten 2-0 at Crewe, and there are plenty of players in need of attention.

Manager Mark Bonner said: “We've got quite a few lads who have done a lot of games to this point.

“We're ten games in now and some have played a lot of football, so a bit of a break in the games programme will help some and then there are others that missed either large parts of pre-season or have missed quite a bit of the last month that just need training.

“They just need time to get sharper, get fitter, and get up to speed.

“In the next five weeks, the four blank training weeks that we'll get will really help us. It'll get some of those up to speed and some of them know that they're a little bit off it at the moment.”

Bonner’s been trying to manage a host of knocks and niggles in his squad.

Players like Ethan Coleman and Elliott Nevitt are playing but had disrupted pre-seasons because of injury, while Tim Dieng has just returned from time out injured.

There’s a whole host of players who need a bit of some TLC.

Bonner said: “Ethan didn't really have an off-season or a pre-season. Timmy's had quite a while out. There's quite a few that have done a lot.

“Armani (Little) missed a bit of pre-season and then has played like every minute of every game and then the consequences of some being unavailable in the same position is someone like Robbie McKenzie just ends up playing almost every minute of every game and that takes its toll as well.”

Fans are waiting patiently to see Bradley Dack in full flow, the star summer addition has been limited to just an hour of first-team football so far.

Bonne