Gillingham aren’t taking any risks with injuries as the new league season rapidly approaches.

Ben Reeves was left out of Tuesday’s 3-2 defeat to Crystal Palace as a precautionary measure while captain Stuart O’Keefe picked up a knee injury prior to the match and is being assessed.

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Manager Neil Harris explained both absences.

“Ben is a precaution and hopefully he will be back on the training pitch Thursday (today),” he said.

“We have to be respectful to Ben’s history, that he hasn’t completed a lot of games each season, just bad fortune, whatever it is, we have to make sure. The plan was always to leave him out somewhere and this was one where he helped us make the call, he felt a bit stiff and tight, he has done every session, this was a good one to miss and hopefully he is fine.”

As for O’Keefe, there is still uncertainty.

Harris said: “Stuart picked up a knock to the knee on Saturday and we are just exploring that a little bit further and so we won’t see him on Saturday unfortunately at Southend.”

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Better news was the return of central defender Max Ehmer, playing 90 minutes on Tuesday after overcoming a back issue.

Harris said: “Bizarrely he has missed two games but very little training even before the two games, one game he missed he trained the day before but stiffened up so we didn’t play him. Then the second one he missed the day before and the game but trained after.

“He has not missed a lot of sessions, some of the others have missed more by coming in a bit later to us. Pushing Max we thought we could expose him to more minutes, playing compact and narrow, it wasn’t a high-press game so we felt he would be comfortable and we were really pleased.”