Gillingham go into their weekend game at Priestfield with a big decision to make upfront.

The Gills will take on Cheltenham Town without striker Josh Andrews because of suspension. Their 6ft 5in powerhouse forward picked up a fifth booking of the season last weekend and must serve a one-match ban.

The natural replacement would be Sam Vokes - who started his first Gills game in the week at Colchester United - but he’s gradually building up his minutes after a broken arm, which led to him missing the whole of pre-season.

Vokes scored against Colchester but only played the first 45 minutes, and has only managed a total of 150 minutes of action so far, with all of his other appearances coming off the bench.

Commenting on the likelihood of Vokes starting his first league game for the Gills this weekend, assistant boss Richard Dobson said: “He's an option. We have had to be careful with him.

“The other night was the first start he's had in a long time, and the first time he's done 45 minutes in a long time, so we're obviously in the hands of the medical team there in terms of whether he can do that again within a few days and what that might look like in terms of the amount of minutes that he can play.

“It might be that he has to come off the bench and make an impact because he hasn't got it in him to do it again, or it's a risk for us to do that. We don't want to break him.”

The Gills haven’t declared the seriousness of an injury to fellow striker Seb Palmer-Houlden, one which forced him out on Tuesday night before the game had even started.

Fellow striker Marcus Wyllie gave an encouraging midweek performance as he chases more minutes on the pitch while Elliott Nevitt was rested for the EFL Trophy match.

The Gills have other attacking players who have been missing with the likes of Bradley Dack, Garath McCleary and Jonny Smith all picking up knocks recently. Euan Williams still hasn’t featured this season

“I would prefer it if we had more players available,” admitted the Gills assistant.

“Two weeks ago, before Gaz left us [for a heart operation], I thought I was going to be the bad guy because we had almost a squad full of players.

“I thought I was going to be leaving good players off the bench, and all of a sudden it's turned within the space of two weeks. We'll just deal with it. No problem.”