Ady Pennock has been given the green light by Gills chairman Paul Scally to start planning for next season.

Head coach Pennock has struggled for results since taking over from sacked boss Justin Edinburgh in January but Mr Scally is putting the blame on player recruitment.

The Gills squad has been left threadbare due to injuries – leaving them with just one fully fit senior defender this weekend - and Mr Scally is working with Pennock and his coaching team to make sure any new recruits are fit for the job.

That hasn't been the case in recent seasons, says the chairman.

Mr Scally said: “The management team have come in and done a tremendous job in getting the players as fit as they can and reorganising the whole training system.

“They can only work with what they have available. We have had so many players who have had long term injuries and they haven’t been able to pick the same team two weeks on the trot.

“Unfortunately some of the players who we have signed over the last two years have inherent injuries.

“I am not criticising the players we have got, they have done the best they can, but when the side keeps getting changed around it makes it very difficult for everyone, including the players.

“We have to be far more careful and take more time on recruitment going forward.”

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Gillingham were so short ahead of the Peterborough game that Mr Scally suggested to his management team that Ian Cox – who last played in the Football League in 2008 and now works in the club’s community department – could still do a job.

Pennock decided against getting the 45-year-old out of retirement.

The Gills head coach is now being entrusted with looking for new players and he has the chairman’s backing at present to continue managing the side from next season, along with his coaching team.

Mr Scally said: “We are planning pre-season and looking at players for next season. We have people out watching and we are building up a database of the players we want to sign. We are doing a lot of work for next season.

“I am very happy with the three guys (Pennock and coaches Steve Lovell and Jamie Day) working the way they are and I haven’t got any particular thoughts about changing anything for next season at this moment in time.

“I am very happy with the management team. They have come into a very difficult situation and had to deal with a number of challenges that are of our own doing.

“It hurts when we lose, when there is nothing that he (Pennock) has done which is wrong. He is putting in players he has to put in because he hasn’t got any options. He is playing half fit players in the wrong positions.”

Gillingham made some big signings last summer but many turned out to be flops. Both Paul Konchesky and now Jamie O’Hara are playing Ryman League football for Billericay while Jay Emmanuel-Thomas was sent back to QPR.

Many other signings this season, like Chris Herd, have been constantly battling injuries.

With the new transfer rulings in place this year, the Gills have been unable to make many changes since the end of January.

Mr Scally said: “We were scratching around trying to find players who were out of contract anywhere in Europe.

“I have all kinds of names sent to me by agents, who haven’t got clubs, but they haven’t got clubs because they probably aren’t good enough. That is the problem.

“The new transfer system, coupled with our poor recruitment, has caused us a major problem this year.

“Having said that, the players who we have got fit and available are very capable and very talented, most of them. If we can get half a team fit then we have half a chance.

“I have no doubt that the players we have got are fully committed and they are in very upbeat mood, which is good.

“We have to try and make it less of an injury crisis going forward. The key to our future success now is our recruitment.”

And Mr Scally will be monitoring potential signings closer than ever.

He said: “They must tick all the boxes and I will be checking them as well. If I don’t think it is right I will raise my concerns.

“I don’t need someone else to tell me how to sign a bad player. If a player hasn’t played a certain number of games over the past two or three years, then that should ring bells.

“I have had the Director of Football, but we have moved on now, we have got a different type of person in management and we are all working very well together.”