Baily Cargill was in the wars on his Gillingham league debut and Justin Edinburgh was only too pleased.

The Gillingham manager wants his side to be more aggressive and Bournemouth loanee Cargill did just that.

Edinburgh said: “It is good to see someone coming off with blood on them. We have to be horrible, more ruthless and more nasty.

“At times I think as well as we play, we have to have that nasty side to us.

“He (Cargill) and Max looked really assured and it was a great league debut for him. He looked assured and aggressive, and it was pleasing.”

Cargill came in for Deji Oshilaja – one of several tough selection choices Edinburgh had to make.

He said: “It’s the first time I could think of, this whole season, that I have had to think of who I was going to put on the bench.

“I left out Mark Byrne, Josh Pask and Darren Oldaker, who was probably the best player on the pitch against West Brom on Tuesday night.

“They were good decisions, not nice to make, but they are in the sense that you have to really think and be thoughtful in your selection.

“You don’t want the team or the bench to be picking itself. You want competition and we had that in abundance last year. Slowly but surely we are starting to get that back."