Gillingham boss Steve Evans is closing in on a couple of transfers before the weekend.

The Gills boss is in the market for a trio of new recruits and will be looking to make permanent transfers after reaching five loans.

Teams can only play a maximum of five loan players in their matchday squads.

Olly Lee’s deal from Hearts has been extended while the club have recently agreed with Southampton to keep Tom O’Connor and Alfie Jones for the remainder of the campaign. Forward Jordan Roberts has just joined from Ipswich Town.

Alex Jakubiak (Watford) is the other loanee but Evans would be reluctant to send their top scorer back halfway through the deal.

In the early part of the week, Evans said he had made good progress with a couple of possible additions.

He said: “We are hopeful on two good options, if we can get them over the line, but it is never easy.

“The boys have to want to come, you need the parent club to agree and then for terms to be agreed here.

“I would say we are 70-80% close, very close on both deals in football terms. It could all happen very quickly or it could all fall apart.”

A host of strikers have been linked to the club, including Blackburn’s Dominic Samuel and Lincoln’s John Akinde. Although wages would be an issue to bringing big striker Akinde in, he is someone Evans admires and has previously worked with at Crawley.

Evans has previously said he doesn’t need to offload players but there are some, like Bradley Garmston - a recent target for Ebbsfleet United - Ouss Cisse and Lee Hodson who aren’t getting minutes.

“We have made some players available,” Evans said.

“We have had some calls and people have asked about their characters and why they are not playing, but that can be one phone call and the player can be off and talking.

“People can work out the group we are working with on a regular basis and we have one or two kids as well who we think highly of, like Jack.

“At some stage we want to open the bench to them because they are doing well in the 23s.

“Jack Tucker is a million pound signing from nowhere isn’t he? He could have been released in the summer but I wanted to look at all the kids.

“We have to keep an open mind because if we don’t then Jack Tucker would have probably gone on and signed for Hastings (where he had been on loan) because nobody in the Football League would have done.”