Defender Max Ehmer is happy to play through the pain for the Gills.

The 28-year-old Gillingham captain has revealed the problems associated with a persistent shoulder injury but hasn’t let it affect him.

Ehmer dislocated his shoulder in the recent game at home to AFC Wimbledon, the second time he’s done it this season. A year ago he suffered a similar injury at Scunthorpe.

Since the incident at Scunthorpe, he’s taken extra precautions to ensure the injury doesn’t return.

The laid-back German centre-half said: “I wear a strap every day, for training and playing. It supports it all and I get it done every day, it’s something I have done religiously since the Scunthorpe injury.

“It takes about 10 minutes to get it strapped, before training and matches.

“It is sore and proper dead for a couple of days but you just keep going, that’s the way it is.

“It is probably better that it is my shoulder than my knee, you just pop it back in and deal with it.”

Fans in the Rainham End got a close-up view of the Gills club doctor returning his shoulder back to where it came from a fortnight ago, late on in the game against AFC Wimbledon.

Speaking about the latest injury, Ehmer said: “Pain-wise, it is not a bad one, it is just uncomfortable.

“The shoulder came out in the air, I jumped and he pushed me back in a weird position and it’s come out. You are then left holding your shoulder area but there is no shoulder in there, it’s moved forward.

“You have to straighten your arm out and get it back in there. I knew straight away when I was in the air that it came out but we put it back in and I asked the doctor if I could carry on, he said no.

“The next day and the following day it feels like you’ve been whacked, like a dead arm. I did light training on the Tuesday and fully on the Thursday and Friday.”

He was able to play the full game at Sunderland last weekend and has had a quicker turnaround than that.

Earlier on in the season he revealed that the same thing happened before their game at Tranmere, when they were training at Liverpool. Twenty-four hours later he completed 90 minutes at Prenton Park.

It was the injury in December 2018 at Scunthorpe that led to him taking extra measures to protect the shoulder, after sustaining a fracture as well as a dislocation.

He has previously had surgery when he was at QPR but hopes what he does now can keep him playing without hindrance.

“If I keep doing the strength work it should be fine, you just have to strengthen the front ligaments,” he said.

He was able to make his 250th Gillingham appearance last Saturday, in the draw at Sunderland.

“I am just thankful to all of the previous managers and the chairman and people around the club for helping to get me there,” he said.

“It was a really good achievement to make my 250th appearance but a bit annoying not to win the game.”

The Gills take on Fleetwood this weekend, a team who are also chasing promotion.

Ehmer said: “Last Saturday was another positive result and we’ll look to build on it.

“It is credit to us as a club to have played Sunderland four times and not to have lost, it shows how much we have come on. We are matching the big boys of the league.

“We might not be one of the big boys as a club, but in terms of how we are playing, how we are as boys, we are one of the big boys if it comes down to that.

“Fleetwood will be a good test and if we are serious about getting into the play-offs then these are the games that we have to be taking points from.

“We need to be winning them all but we need to beat the boys above us to cut the deficit. We’ve nine games left and we are looking to win all of them.”

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