Burscough v Gillingham

GILLINGHAM manager Neale Cooper is set to plead with his chairman Paul Scally to let him buy more players to bolster his injury-hit squad.

The Gills travel to Burscough in the FA Cup first round on Saturday with Cooper admitting he is desperately short of players.

The club's injury list hit double figures after Tuesday's 3-1 defeat at Hartlepool and they trek into the unknown with a heavily depleted squad.

Cooper, who is fully aware of club's precarious financial state, will beg chairman Paul Scally for cash to increase the numbers in his ranks.

Cooper said: "We've now got 11 or 12 players injured and it's a nightmare. I'll meet with the chairman and I'll push to get one or two new players as we're desperate. We're running out of players, we can't play the youth team.

Cooper's assistant Ronnie Jepson has reiterated the problems facing the Priestfield management team.

He said: "We've signed a few players and the chairman has been quite kind to us. But we've got a budget and we can't keep signing players. They have to go in the opposite direction as well."

"The last thing we want to do is bankrupt this football club. It's easy to identify a target but to get people in we have to get people out and we're working on both aspects."

* KENT ONLINE WILL BRING YOU ALL THE CONFIRMED TEAM NEWS AHEAD OF KICK-OFF, A HALF-TIME UPDATE AND A FULL-TIME MATCH REPORT, PLUS REPORTS AND RESULTS FROM ALL THE OTHER GAMES INVOLVING THE COUNTY'S MAJOR SIDES, ON SATURDAY.