Whitstable manager Marcel Nimani hopes his latest recruit will give his side an extra boost in attack.

Harry Gamble has joined the Oystermen from fellow Southern Counties East Premier Division side Glebe.

Attacking midfielder Gamble impressed Nimani at Erith Town last season and was delighted to have got his man on board.

The Town boss said: “Harry is an ambitious, experienced player at this level, he had a fantastic season last year at Erith Town and wants to reach those levels with us this year.

“He is a player whose progress I have tracked for some time now.

“He will give us quality in the opposition half which is what we have been lacking lately, we are creating chances but not necessarily with the end product, we feel that Harry will give us the extra quality that we need. “

Nimani’s men got a heavy defeat out of their system with a win against Rochester United at the weekend. With no game scheduled last Saturday, Whitstable took on the Southern Counties East Division 1 side in a charity fixture - with a share of the proceeds going to the All Wrapped Up initiative run by the town’s Riverside Church, providing Christmas dinner hampers to those in need.

Nimani was glad to be able to help a community cause and welcomed the chance to shake off a 4-0 Premier Division thumping at home to Erith Town the weekend before.

The Oystermen won the charity friendly 5-2.

“It was a good game for both in terms of football but also to the community,” Nimani said. “It was nice to give something back.

"In terms of the football it was very much needed, it was good to have a game and play well, look at a few shapes and a couple of players in different positions, so from a football front it was very much needed and an objective complete.

“It was needed to shake that (4-0 defeat) off, considering how poor that was we didn’t want to go into the next league game feeling that low, so it was good for that.”

Whitstable head into the weekend as part of the chasing pack, trying to haul in Erith Town and Stansfeld, the two teams below runaway Premier Division leaders Erith & Belvedere.

Bringing in some consistent results will help and Nimani’s men will look to get back to positive results when they travel to Bearsted this Saturday (1pm).

“The hope is still there,” said the Manager, seven games into his spell in charge. “It gives us a purpose and a meaning to direct our energy for the rest of the season, we wan to keep that hope alive for as long as possible.

“Bearsted away is a tough, tough game, a good strong side at home, they have just come from a double header against Rusthall and they beat them in both the cup and league, we know they will be a tough unit to beat and we are expecting a very difficult challenge there.”

It’s been a steady start to the season for Nimani, having taken over in mid-October and the management team are working on a three-stage development.

Stage one was the implementation of their playing philosophy.

“We feel we are now at the stage where players understand how we want them to play,” he said.

The following stages are player recruitment and team cohesion.

Nimani said: “We feel that we are in between the two stages at the moment, we still feel the need to add one or two to complete our confidence.

“We have recently begun as a management team turning our attention towards building harmony, cohesion and other psychological interventions to get the changing room atmosphere where we believe it to be in order for us to get those consistent levels which we aspire to reach.”