Opinion: Why Gillingham must seek this agreement to avoid transfer disappointment | OneFootball

Gillingham don’t necessarily have a reputation for being bullish in the transfer market nowadays. The club’s record sale to date still remains to be Paulo Gazzaniga who departed Priestfield for Tottenham Hotspur some nine season ago.

In more recent times the likes of Bradley Dack and Tom Eaves have departed, withe the former being the only one out of the duo to command an actual fee.

Losing your best players is a worrying trend for any club to follow nowadays, let alone one of Gillingham’s size and stature.

In terms of bringing players to the football club, they are usually quids in as they are easily the most reputable club in Kent, meaning that they are able to harvest up a lot of the best talent from around said catchment area.

However when it comes to keeping players at the club in the long-term, it can be a challenging landscape to navigate, particularly with the effects of COVID being thrown into the mix.

As we rapidly approach the end of the current campaign and in turn look ahead to the summer transfer window, the Gills currently have number of players who will soon be out of contract, with the most notable of which being Connor Ogilvie.

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The former Tottenham Hotspur defender has gradually developed into one of the best all round defenders in the division under the guidance of Steve Evans and is sure to attract interest from elsewhere sooner or later, with Portsmouth having already been touted as a potential destination.

Capable of playing at both full back and in the heart of defence, the 25-year-old offers cover for the Gills in two areas of the pitch and it would be criminal if he was to depart for next to nothing this summer.

Securing the defender on a new contract must be viewed as a priority by Paul Scully and co in order to protect the player’s value as he is now approaching his prime years as a professional.

In short, signing Ogilvie on a new deal and then selling him on for profit further down the line would serve the Gills well and set them up with money in the bank to go out and rebuild the squad.