ANDY HESS: SHAPE UP QUICKLY OR BE SHIPPED OUT
Saturday, 3 July
Gills manager Andy Hessenthaler (left) put some reality into the gentle first pre-season training session yesterday when the players returned to Beechings Cross by telling them they must try their hardest to impress him.
In pre-season there will be plenty of opportunity for all the squad to prove their worth and show that they are capable of putting Gills back into League One at the first attempt.
Andy made it clear that any player not up to his high standard will be told and the Club will try and move them on. Andy told kentnews.co.uk, “If players are not in my plans I will tell them and see if we can move them on. They have all got to impress me and they have got to go out and prove they want to be in the team.”
One of the players who must be under greater scrutiny is Mark McCammon (right) who must be hoping a change in management will enable him to prove he can be a vital Gills squad player.
Big Mac publicly fell out with Mark Stimson last season and the former Gills boss never did get the best out him and with one year left of his contract Mac will be going all out to impress Hess.
McCammon said "I’m fit and focused and it’s a fresh start for me now. I want to be able to show what I can do and when I get a run of games I know what I’m capable of”.
Simon King (pictured left) who has been out of football action for over a year attended the first Gills training but had an individual session in his efforts to build up fitness levels for an eventual return.
Although some signs were there of improvement Simon is still way off joining the rest of the squad in full training sessions.
Andy Hessenthaler hasn’t an enormous amount of time to make his mind up about the Gills squad formation but commented that the contracted players will be supplemented by a number of triallists during pre-season. Several will be included in the arranged pre-season friendlies and therefore some will be on show at Braintree on Friday 9 July.
With little or no money available for signings it is just as well that Andy Hess has been impressed with the number and standard of player available as free agents. Premier League academies are casting adrift and many of the Gills triallists could be from this source with the best possibly offered terms in the next few weeks.
Hess said, “We haven’t got the money to go out and buy players, so we have to look at players who have been released. Looking at the list there are players from big clubs and at our level they could do really well.”