Gills appoint new Chief Scout

By Jack Nolan
October 1 2006

Gillingham have appointed former Millwall man Alan McLeary as their new Chief Scout. McLeary, 41, will be in search of new recruitments for the January transfer window as the Gills boss looks for more permanent signings.

McLeary has also had two brief spells as Millwall boss - both as a joint manager role. His first joint management spell came in the 99-00 season with Keith Stevens. He was at that role again last season with Tony Burns for the last couple of games after Millwalls relegation was confirmed. The two chose to pick promising youth fielding siders with a average age of just twenty one.

Jepson, speaking to this Sundays KoS, spoke of his desire to go for permanent sigings rather than short term loans. "We are looking to build a team capable of getting promotion from this league. Loans are not the answe. That is just short term and I would like to improve my squad by signing players on a permanent basis."

The Gills boss continued:"That is the way forward for me. We have got a small squad so we will just getr to the rtansfer window and hopefully we can pull one or two in for the second half of the season.

"We are still looking at the loan system by what you find is that the good players, the experienced players with a few games under their belts, but not on thier legs, are difficult to get as people keep their squad intact.

"What manager tend to do is push the younger ones at you to gain a bit of experience and that might not be the answer for us".