More on KentOnline
More on KentOnline
Gillingham boss Steve Evans fears they could be without Dominic Samuel for a month and there isn’t good news on Jordan Graham’s injury status either.
Striker Samuel, the club’s joint top league scorer, was stretchered off on Tuesday night at Priestfield after injuring himself while reaching for the ball.
Samuel suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury at previous club Blackburn, putting him out long-term, and he looked in some pain when he went down after 20 minutes of Gills' midweek game against Doncaster.
Speaking after the game, Evans has been told the player suffered a hamstring strain, rather than anything more serious.
“He will be four weeks I would think, but it is early,” said Evans, ahead of any scan on the injury.
Samuel has six goals in League 1 for the Gills and was a major signing for Evans this summer, but is latest to have suffered an injury this season where the timescale for recovery has been in weeks rather than days.
Skipper Kyle Dempsey, vice captain Stuart O’Keefe and fellow midfielder Jacob Mellis are among those to have had to overcome injuries. Dempsey and Mellis are back and O’Keefe, who suffered a fractured leg, is expected to return in February.
Prior to Tuesday’s game, Evans had said that it was possible Jordan Graham could have made a return, but the latest news on the injury isn’t good.
The former Wolves winger, who has scored six goals and assisted in just as many, is now expected to be missing until “after Christmas,” according to the Gills boss. Trae Coyle is also set to be missing for a few weeks with a groin injury.
Evans said: “We are down to bare bones but what do you do? You get in the trenches and you fight.”
Mellis played the first 45 minutes on Tuesday, coming back from injury after surgery on a knee. He had played less than half a game at the weekend against Doncaster.
Evans said: “He has come back from an end of season potential injury and he had 30 minutes at Donny.
"We thought he might manage an hour (on Tuesday) but we changed the shape and took him off. If anything when he got on the ball he was probably our most creative player in the first half but it wouldn’t have been difficult because the second most creative player was Paul Raynor! (the non-playing assistant manager)”
Read more on the Gills;
