Football Season Guide

Gillingham are coming off a rather difficult season which saw them hoping for a play-off push, only to end up avoiding relegation by a single point. The Gills have been on a clear down-trend as a club over the last year-and-a-half or so and Andy Pennock, who took over in the second half of the previous season, now faces the tough task of reversing that trend. The Gills have had an extremely turbulent summer which saw as many as eight players depart and as many join. They have lost some of their best and most important players such as Bradley Dack, Cody McDonald, Rory Donnelly, Ryan Jackson and Zesh Rehman. They've also failed to secure another loan for Cardiff man, Deji Oshilaja, who spent a lot of time with them last season. Despite containing several well-known League One names, the list of players who joined them during the summer is rather disappointing, with Gabriel Zakuani and Billy Bingham being the sole two new players in their squad that are accustomed to being regular starters for a League One side. With Donnelly, Dack and McDonald all gone, the biggest question now is where the goals will come from and the Gills' fans will hardly be delighted with the knowledge that Conor Wilkinson has never scored more than five league goals in a season and that Tom Eaves has scored only four goals for Yeovil last season, while playing in a lower division. It is safe to say that the Gills have done absolutely nothing to reverse their down-trend and their fans will be particularly worried by the fact that there are not many sides in the league this season that look like obvious relegation candidates.