Gillingham’s lack of festive action meant manager Steve Evans had more time to concentrate on the players he’s looking to sign in January.

The Gills have two more games before new additions are set to arrive and talks are already underway concerning the signing of “three or four” new recruits.

Evans has admitted some players may need to leave to balance the books.

Commenting on his transfer plans, he said: “We are speaking to clubs now, I am speaking to sporting directors, managers and agents. Of course the last person to get involved is the player himself.

“We are finding at the minute a lot of the players we are targetting would be available subject to their clubs strengthening their group so there is always a chain reaction as to when you can strengthen.

“We will only add to the group if we think the player will genuinely improve us. We have some things that we’re working on and that will continue over the next few days.

“We are looking at a lad in the Conference that we really like, one in League 2, if not two, and a couple in the league above. Three or four players is what we’re looking at and we may have to lose a couple along the way, to keep the numbers balance.

“The one thing I know is that we won’t be spending a penny more than what we are spending at the moment, if you analyse the budget, because our chairman says in these times that quite rightly we need to be prudent more than ever.”

It’s unlikely the Gills will be paying any fees for players.

“In these times it is very difficult to buy players,” Evans said.

“I think our chairman would put his hand in his pocket if he felt they was someone young who could become an asset, we would always look at that, but we have to look in the real world. We don’t sit there with spare money to go and spend on transfer fees and signing players, especially in these times.

“My job is to present the options to our chairman, the players I like, and him and Tom (Lawrence, the chief exec) would then go and see if they could be done.”

Evans may wish to reassess his loan options too. He currently has six loan players on the books, with a maximum of five named in any matchday squad.

Last season the Gills changed things around in January with Mikael Ndjoli and Alex Jakubiak departing while Jordan Graham and Jordan Roberts came in the door.

His loan recruits at present are Zech Medley, Trae Coyle (both Arsenal), Declan Drysdale, Josh Eccles (both Coventry), Tommy O’Connor (Southampton) and Scott Robertson (Celtic).

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