Gills boss Steve Evans will be picking his loan signings carefully.

Evans is in the market for several loanees to bolster his Gillingham squad. He’s already indicated that he’s been eyeing up players at the recent Toulon Tournament, a competition for the best up and coming young players.

But talent won’t be the only thing swaying Evans when it comes to negotiations.

Evans said: “Sometimes they come to League 1 with a mindset where they think they are too good and that becomes a problem. If someone thinks they are too good for something, you become not good enough.

“It is always a balance, especially with the younger ones, you need to sign the right type of character. Some lads will come and sign and think they will play every week.

“The personal traits of the individual player and the parents and the club he is coming from are massive in the conversation.

“Some clubs now at the higher levels are putting punishment clauses in with a player on a reasonable wage and if you don’t play him you pay x-amount a week for him but I won’t buy into that.

“If my own son went on loan somewhere I would want him to play but play on merit, not because there is a clause somewhere, that doesn’t benefit anyone. I don’t think it is a clause we would agree with because I think players should play on merit.”

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Young Premier League players are naturally likely to get more of a chance of playing in League 1, something Evans believes players’ agents and clubs are now more mindful of.

“More and more agents are getting sensible,” he said. “Again, if it was my son and he was gong on loan I would want him to be playing.

“I wouldn’t want him to go from playing 23s in the Premier League to sit on the bench in the Championship, I would rather see him play in League 1.”

Evans is prepared to wait for the loan agreements to fall into place.

He said: “Sometimes those loans come late in the day as well because rightfully managers of all clubs want to look at young players. We have suggested some of our young players should go on loan but we want to look at them first though.

“Sometimes you can get a surprise but if they don’t you can ascertain what level they need to be at to develop.”

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