Gillingham manager Neil Harris believes Tuesday’s visitors Crystal Palace will be the best team to have played at Priestfield in years.

Palace manager Patrick Vieira has taken a group of players on tour to Singapore and Australia but Covid travel restrictions have meant that many of the Premier League side’s top players have been left behind, meaning the likes of Wilfried Zaha, Christian Benteke and England international Marc Guehi could be lining up at ME7 to take on the Gills this week.

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It’s an intriguing prospect for the Gills in what will be their penultimate pre-season challenge and follows tough games against Championship side Luton Town last Wednesday and League 1 Portsmouth at the weekend.

“What a game, what a brilliant game,” enthused Gills boss Harris.

“Palace will bring a senior group of players with some youngsters that haven’t travelled to Australia and obviously one group has gone away, senior and young, and another group has stayed behind.

“We will welcome them on Tuesday and they will be as good as we have seen at this ground for years gone by to be honest and what a test for us.

“The reason I took the games that I have had, at Luton and against Portsmouth and Palace, was because they were the best opponents we could find for what we wanted within a six day period.

“On Saturday we saw us physically struggle at times and even on Tuesday we won’t be at our best, it will a real tough challenge but one we look forward to.

“I don’t know the individuals who will come but I know it will be a strong group and it will be a real test for us and it will be a real physical test for us, but that is what we want. We want to come up and get what we need out of each individual fixture and Palace, win, lose or draw, we are going to get what we need out of the game for sure.”

Palace beat Ipswich Town 4-2 in a friendly at their academy ground on Saturday. The team on tour will be taking on Manchester United in Melbourne several hours before their UK-based group head to Priestfield, led by the club’s assistant boss Osian Roberts.

Gillingham boss Harris hopes to have a fully fit squad ahead of the game with defender Max Ehmer (back) set to rejoin training this week.