Matt Fish has explained why he quit Gillingham to sign for Ebbsfleet United.

The full-back joined Fleet on Saturday having barely played for the Gills this season.

Fish started only two league games before being loaned out to Portsmouth in November.

A move away from Priestfield looked likely when he returned from the League 2 club although the sacking of Peter Taylor on New Year's Eve made Fish reconsider.

He felt his chances of starting games might have improved under a new manager but a subsequent conversation with Gillingham chairman Paul Scally made up his mind.

Fish said: "I was going to sit around and see if the new manager came in. But I spoke to the chairman and he said there wasn’t going to be one for the time being.

"I decided that if I wasn’t going to play there, under the staff who were in control, then I wanted to get out and play some football. I had six months left on my contract and I needed to play games.

"It’s been a stop-start season. I had a good pre-season, then I had a little niggle in pre-season and the gaffer didn’t play me for some reason. I just wasn’t playing and I don’t really know why. The gaffer obviously had his opinions and other people’s opinions.

"He thought I was short on confidence but that wasn’t really the case. I thought I was playing well. Maybe other people were getting in his ear, I’m not too sure, but I wasn’t going to play there.

"I said ‘look, I need to go out on loan’ and Portsmouth came in. I played a few games down there but it didn’t really work out because they had a big squad.

"I came back to Gills and then this came about.

"I spoke to the chairman (Dr Abdulla Al-Humaidi) and he expressed what was going on at the club – and (manager) Jamie Day was still interested, so we got it done. I’m happy to be here."

Fish could make his Ebbsfleet debut away to Sutton United on Saturday.