By Luke Cawdell

Gillingham manager Mark Stimson will open talks with Kevin Maher this week.

The midfielder, pictured right, spent a brief spell on loan with the Gills during the 2007-08 campaign and Stimson tried to lure him to the club last summer.

Maher chose instead to join Oldham, but the 32-year-old is again a free agent and Stimson is hoping to get him at the second attempt.

"It was a massive disappointment to miss out on him last year," said Stimson. "If we had him in the team last season we wouldn’t have made the play-offs, we would have won the league.

"I didn’t come across a midfielder in League 2 who came anywhere near him, apart from maybe the lad at Bradford, Dean Furman, who was on loan from Glasgow Rangers.

"He’s someone who would be a very good addition to the group. I’m hoping we can bash out a deal and he can come and join us but we can’t count our chickens."

Stimson has been inundated by requests from players and their agents but he won’t be making major changes this summer.

He said: "I’ve had a lot of phone calls and there are between 75 and 100 players who want to come and have a chat.

"We’re quite fortunate because we already have the nucleus and, in my eyes, there is not a lot that we need to tinker with.

"We do need one or two players, though, because it will be hard just to stay in League 1, let alone be successful in it."