Gillingham boss Steve Evans says the contract offer is still on the table if Connor Ogilvie wants to stay at Priestfield.

The 25-year-old left-sided defender turned down a new deal at Gills following the end of last season but featured for the club in Saturday’s 2-0 pre-season friendly win at Colchester.

Ogilvie’s future may still lie away from Priestfield but Evans is not going to rule out a U-turn ahead of the League 1 opener against Lincoln on August 7.

On the contract offer, Evans stated: “We’ve never taken it off (the table). There will come a time when we have to go and use that money, of course.

“Nothing is impossible – you can never say never. Connor has options and I think one or two clubs were here today to see how he is.

“He looked a bit rusty if I’m being honest but we know what we get from Connor and I think our supporters know.

“The chairman made him a really good offer at the end of the season, as good as we can probably do and I don’t think that’s going to change. But until such time that Connor picks up the phone and tells me he has gone somewhere else then (you never know).”

While Ogilvie was taking advantage of his Gills connections to get some minutes under his belt, it was another senior body for Evans to use with numbers still light and the squad just coming back into action after nearly a fortnight away from the training ground due to Covid.

Gills are still without summer signing David Tutonda, a left-back, and centre-back Max Ehmer due to Covid protocols so former Tottenham defender Ogilvie's involvement was welcome for the manager.

“Connor’s been training with us since the start of pre-season,” disclosed Evans.

“He was an additional player to the 10 that went out with Covid so he’s had a tough time.

“He’s come back in the door and trained for a couple of days. We looked at our personnel for today and David Tutonda is not back until the middle of the week and Max Ehmer back in on Monday. We looked at our team and I said to Connor ‘do you want some match minutes to help you?’

“He loves Gillingham, of course he does, so he said yes, and he’ll train with us until he tells us something different.”

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