Bart Bialkowski, Shaun Hutchinson, Maikel Kieftenbeld and George Saville weren’t involved in the 4-1 defeat to Arsenal at the weekend. Millwall have also been affected by the so-called ‘pingdemic’ as hundreds of thousands of people in the UK have been forced to self-isolate over the last week and a half.
Gillingham, meanwhile, have had two pre-season friendlies cancelled after Covid outbreaks.But Steve Evans’ side were in action at Colchester last Saturday, winning 2-0 with goals from Ben Reeves and Jack Tucker.The Gills face Lincoln on August 7 in their first game of the League One season.
“I think it was very rusty, I’m not questioning the effort and desire – that’s our second time on a football pitch proper since last May and we’ve almost had two breaks with Covid,”
Evans told media after the game. “And last week was particularly tough when nine of the players had it, with three or four of the staff, so we had to take an enforced break and other clubs are going through similar things.
“I’ve seen a lot of things that I liked, a lot of thing we need to work on. Timings and touches will only get better, but we are in a race against time to be ready for Lincoln.“When the going gets tough, you get up and fight and we lead our troops to battle.
“At one point we were training with four players and we had to call a Covid break. Our medical team called it. I had to make a decision that I knew was right for all of us, but I knew it could hinder us.
“We are trying to work the players during the week. They came back in Wednesday and have worked really hard. Some were still stiff from running [Friday]. We tried to get two or three of Colchester’s boys but got nowhere near it.”
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Gillingham signed midfielder Daniel Phillips and goalkeeper Jamie Cumming on loan from Watford and Chelsea in the last week.
Evans added: “I don’t think any of the players are ready for 90, we are just not. We’ll probably look at that when we get to Norwich. Certainly [on Tuesday] towards 70 or 75. It will be a different team with perhaps a different system.
“We need to make sure we have given everyone in the group the opportunity to have those minutes.”
