Saturday’s match-winner Brandon Hanlan is primed to be a crowd favourite according to Gillingham boss Steve Lovell.

Hanlan was in the right place at the right time to net an 89th-minute winner against Oxford, his fifth goal of the season.

“He will be a crowd favourite, he really will,” said Lovell, who brought Hanlan to the club in the summer on a free transfer.

“He works and he gives everything. I sat down with him on the Friday after training and said, ‘the only thing missing from your game is goals but I said, ’they will come’.

“I remember Elliott List last year, the same thing happened, he went and scored against Bristol Rovers at the end of the season and then scored five or six in a spell.”

Hanlan headed home from a yard out on Saturday but Lovell has been crying out for more tap-ins from his players this season.

“It was goal of the season for me!” said Lovell, who was the king of the close-range finish at Gillingham during his playing days.

“Those for me are the best goals you can ever score, the tap-ins, being there at the right place at the right time.

“The 30-yarders and 20-yarders you can practise in training, 10 go in the trees and one goes in. But the tap-ins you are there, in that area to just stick it in and get all the glory – I made a living out of it.

“I was a useless player but I scored so many tap-ins. People do all the work and I’m there to score the goals but that was what I was good at.

“I would suss things out, where the ball was going and I would get the goals, that is what these boys have to learn and they will do.”

Hanlan is halfway to double figures now – something Lovell believes his striker can achieve before the season ends.

“I said to Brandon ‘you have to have a target’. If he gets 10 then that has been a good season.”

Lovell trains his strikers on finishing every Tuesday and believes Hanlan has the ability, but needs to relax.

He said: “His finishing is excellent. It is about that little bit of confidence.

“He had a chance at Fleetwood last week, it came over his shoulder and he should have put it in. He said he was thinking ‘I’ve got to score’ and you tighten up. If he had relaxed it would have been in, bang.

“He does it in training, but in a game you tighten up, he is so eager. The more he plays, the more he scores, he will understand, you just relax and it will come naturally.

“He is a young boy, he is learning his trade, but he has a bright future.

“He is an old-fashioned centre-forward with modern technical ability and strength.

“Like Elliott List, two boys who have got the football world at their feet. They are quick, they have everything, strong, good in the air and can score goals and work hard.”