Ebbsfleet United have signed Belgian left-back Bryan van den Bogaert.

The 24-year-old played against the Fleet earlier this season, making his debut for Whitehawk in a 2-2 draw at Stonebridge Road.

He joins Ebbsfleet at a time when the National League South leaders are short of options at left-back, with Aiden Palmer out for the season and Joe Howe struggling with a calf injury.

Dean Pooley played against Whitehawk and Concord and the Fleet kept clean sheets in both games but manager Daryl McMahon has acted by making his first signing of 2016.

He said: "Bryan was at Whitehawk earlier in the season, left Whitehawk to have a couple of Football League trials and then went back to Belgium.

"I found out he was available. I’ve seen him play two or three times for Whitehawk, once against us and I’ve watched Whitehawk twice when he played for them.

"He’s a player I like, he’s naturally left-footed, 24, so he comes in at a good age. He becomes our player today (Tuesday) and he’s a good player."

Van den Bogaert could make his Fleet debut at home to Truro on Saturday.

McMahon said: "Joe won’t be available at the weekend. Joe’s going to be – hopefully – a couple of weeks but I just want him to rest really.

"He's tried to come back twice and broken down twice. I don’t want him to come back again and break down again because it’s going to be tough for him then.

"I’d rather he had a sustained period of time out and when he comes back, he’s fit.

"We have got a left-back now, we’ve added there just in case. We’ve only got Joe and Fishy (Matt Fish) at the moment. Craig Braham-Barrett’s on loan and Aiden’s a long-term injury so we’ve only really got two full-backs.

"We’ve obviously played the back-three as well but I’ll probably decide tonight or tomorrow what we’re going to do on Saturday. We’ll look at some footage of Truro and go from there.

"In the last home game (against Concord) we did play a back-three. We may do it again this Saturday, we may not. I’ll decide as the week goes on."