Last season’s leading scorer Tom Eaves is facing a battle to be fit for Gillingham’s league opener.

The Gills kick off their League 1 campaign with a trip to Accrington Stanley on Saturday.

Eaves has been restricted to two halves of pre-season action, after picking up an ankle injury, but has made good progress and is pushing to be involved this weekend.

“He has got a chance,” said boss Steve Lovell of last season’s 18-goal striker.

“He has gone through a really good week of training, he has done everything possible to get his fitness up.

“We will see where we are with him but we don’t want to put him in too soon for the sake of perhaps one game and have him out for four or five weeks.”

Lovell is also waiting patiently on Conor Wilkinson. He has a thigh strain and managed 80 minutes against Thamesmead last Saturday.

There are a few others with knocks, including new signing Josh Rees (ankle), Elliott List (shoulder) and Josh Parker (deadleg).

Gillingham will have Mark Byrne available, despite his sending off at Colchester in their pre-season friendly. No further action has been taken, the club has confirmed.

Weekend opponents Accrington won League 2 last season and Lovell can’t wait to get the game underway after a long pre-season.

He said: “We have used pre-season to get ourselves match fit and get our confidence up regarding goals scored, which we have done. We had a blip against Colchester (losing 5-1) but I would rather it came in pre-season than the league.

“It gets to a stage in pre-season where everybody can’t wait for the league to start, it does drag on a little bit but it has to be done, the foundations have to be laid.”