Gillingham are expecting to have a key midfield player back when they return to action next week.

The Gills have another Saturday off due to it being FA Cup second round weekend and they don’t play again until making the short trip to face South London side Bromley next Wednesday night (December 4).

When they do return to action, manager Mark Bonner expects to have vice captain Armani Little back.

Bonner spoke on Saturday, after a 2-1 home loss to Harrogate, about his team lacking personality and athleticism on the pitch. Little’s the kind of player who brings both of those characteristics to the team.

“Hopefully (he will be) back for Bromley,” said Bonner, who was looking to see the midfielder building up his training this week after limping out of the game against Port Vale and then missing the Harrogate match.

Bonner’s team faltered again at the weekend but the manager’s been boosted by having extra faces around the squad to choose from.

Elliott Nevitt was back involved after around a month out injured - starting the match on Saturday.

Robbie McKenzie and George Lapslie made appearances off the bench and winger Aaron Rowe isn’t far behind. He hasn’t played since the end of August.

Josh Andrews has yet to start a league game because of injuries but got more minutes as a substitute.

Bonner said: “Robbie had only trained a week (prior to Saturday), having been out for six weeks. He's not quite up to speed yet.

“Lapo’s fine, back and available and training.

“Aaron Rowe’s trained but isn't quite available yet to play.

“Josh Andrews is obviously chipping away.

“Nev's trained for a week or so so that helped (on Saturday) to just get him going again but he's going to take a bit of time.

“That's the pattern where we've been too often. Then there's obviously big decisions to make around who's in squads and who's in teams and everything.

“The truth probably is there aren't loads of players that could be smashing the door down if they're not involved. That's a problem.

“If you're not quite sure what you're going to get from players, and there hasn't been too many hitting real high consistent levels, (picking the team) becomes a little bit more difficult.

“The challenge for them is like, ‘be better’.”

It’s been a stop-start period for the Gills, with the two Saturday’s not in action this month. They’ve played just twice in League 2 during November.

Bonner’s not looking at that inconsistent calendar as an excuse, however, saying: “It doesn't matter. It is what it is. We were all right. It didn't affect us in the first half (on Saturday).

“It didn't affect us to starting the second half. It didn't affect us getting on top of the game and scoring. It didn't affect us in the five minutes after, where we have two more chances to score.

“It's got nothing to do with the 30 minutes after it where we were hopeless.

“That's down to personality, quality, desire to be on the winning team and that is what is lacking too often in a consistent basis to be the team we've seen sometimes, but not often enough.”