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Gillingham have signed Dulwich Hamlet forward Jayden Clarke - a player the club hope will be a star of the future.
Manager Neil Harris says Clarke “and one or two others” are being signed by the club with a view to the future and he sees the newly-arrived frontman as a “project” to work on.
Clarke, 21, can play in a variety of attacking roles and was a key man for the Londoners, with goals and assists. He picked up the National League South player-of-the-month award for December.
Harris said: “He’s slightly different to the other lads who have come in, who are ready to hit the ground running, and have the pedigree from the level and above. Jayden is a different project for us.
“He has done extremely well this year, we have all seen his potential, he has great attributes to improve and develop and there is no pressure on Jayden’s shoulders to be ready on Saturday. We certainly are looking to him and one or two others to come into the building that are going to give us real potential in the future.
“We wanted to get business done for some of the youngsters now that might not effect the team today because we want them to develop with us and we want to build that culture and environment as a developing club as well. Jayden fits into that bracket.”
Harris will keep Clarke at the club for the time being, rather than loan him out. He wants to integrate him with the squad.
Speaking about his new signing’s attributes, he said: “He can handle the football, his receiving skills are excellent, he has end product, he has got energy, we see him anywhere in the front four or five positions.
“He has real drive and energy and as we saw last Saturday that was what we had as a team and what we want as a football club. I am really looking forward to working with him, we have started already, we look forward to the coming months.
“We have to be in our minds that he has come from part-time training, we are certainly going to have to be patient with him and make sure that we prepare him correctly each week to give him the opportunity to be on the grass as much as possible and to get him up to speed with the first-team lads as quickly as we can.”
