Gillingham’s livewire forward Jordan Green is a doubt for their weekend game against Swindon Town.

Green was named on the bench for the midweek game against Charlton Athletic in the Papa John’s Trophy but he pulled out of the warm-up with a hip injury.

Gillingham boss Neil Harris admitted they were keen to reignite the form Green had shown in the early weeks of the season and his injury is a further blow to their hopes.

Harris said: “He wasn’t starting (on Wednesday) anyway but we were thinking about an impact from the bench. He was on fire pre-season, so sharp, he worked tirelessly all summer to get his opportunity to come in with us and caught the eye.

“But we think he has looked a bit leggy in games recently anyway, he hasn’t had quite the same impact, everyone can see that, we thought it was a chance to take him out and freshen him up, but he had to step out of the warm-up.”

Asked about the winger’s chance for the weekend, Harris said: “We will have to see, it is an outside chance I would imagine, but it doesn’t look like anything serious, that’s for sure.”

A bonus for the Gills on Wednesday was the return from injury of midfielders Shaun Williams and Dom Jefferies.

Williams started the match and was replaced at the break by Jefferies, enabling both to get 45 minutes in their legs.

Harris said: “They are going to be important for us in a long season, we used the game to get players minutes and that was a prime example for them to get 45 minutes each.

“We made subs at half time and early second half just to manage the minutes and when you have only got a small group and you haven’t got an under-23 group, if you leave three of four behind they can’t even train, so we used it as an exercise like a training game early in the second half, making changes, to manage the minutes.”

While that pair returned, it gave fellow midfielder, captain Stuart O’Keefe, the chance of a rest. Harris admitted he had returned from his own injury too early to cover for missing personnel.

Harris said: “He had a clear-out of his knee when he was out for a few weeks (at the start of the season) and he had a minor op.

“We had to put him back in the group slightly earlier than we hoped because we lost Dom and Willo at the same time. Ben Reeves looked a revelation a little bit deeper, it helped us realise that, but we had to rush Stu back a little sooner than we thought we would. It was a good opportunity to rest his legs.”

Defender Max Ehmer was also rested.

“He has been tired,” Harris said. “The plan was never to put him on the pitch. We just put Max on the bench because he was there anyway.”