The co-chairman of Gillingham’s League 2 relegation rivals Crawley Town has explained the reasoning for selling them their star striker.

Preston Johnson has spoken to the club’s fans to try and address some issues of discontent and commented on the reasons the club sold Tom Nichols to the Gills. He moved to Priestfield for an undisclosed fee.

It was a deal that, unsurprisingly, hasn’t gone down well with Crawley supporters, who are concerned about the way the club is heading under their current owners, Us cryptocurrency investors Wagmi United LLC.

Mr Johnson gave a number of reasons for selling, including the player’s height and his age. Nichols, who is 5ft 10inch, is 30 in August.

“We love Tom Nichols,” said the Crawley co-chairman. “He is a good player, he has given a lot of good years to our club and we are always going to be thankful to his contribution on and off the pitch.

“This was a football move that we felt we needed to make to benefit the club and on the football side of things. I don’t think it should be a surprise to anyone who has watched us that we lack size in our attack.”

The Crawley boss said that with fellow striker Dom Telford in the squad - they couldn’t accommodate two players who “are both smaller.”

He said: “That made it hard for us to play them together at the same time and still be effective in the attacking third. It didn’t make sense to keep both of them in the squad long-term when we couldn’t play them together, particularly as Tom’s contract was up in the summer and he wasn’t going to be part of our future plans.

“We had a decision to make. Tom is turning 30 in the summer and getting to that phase where typically a lot of players’ performances start to decline.

“He wasn’t going to be cheap for us to retain this summer anyway and we had an offer on the table that paid us a significant amount to let him go in January that we can then reinvest in the club to strengthen in other positions.”

Gillingham announced Nichols’ signing on December 28 but he hasn’t be able to play yet. The striker has been training and watching matches but EFL rules stated that new signings couldn’t be involved over the New Year weekend and he was cup-tied for the match against Leicester. He will be involved this Saturday for the first time when the Gills host Hartlepool in a crunch relegation battle.

Gills manager Neil Harris said: “He has been excellent in training, a breath of fresh air in the group, we look forward to welcoming him into the group next week.”