Matt Taylor indicates that Bristol Rovers are unlikely to gamble on ex-Cardiff City striker

Matt Taylor has indicated that Bristol Rovers won't be offering striker Isaac Vassell a contract after the 30-year-old trained with the Gas for the vast majority of the second half of the season.

Having not played a competitive game since August 2019, the former Cardiff City, Birmingham City and Luton Town forward was allowed to train at The Quarters before eventually signing a contract with Bath City until the end of the campaign. While playing for the National League South outfit, Vassell continued to train with Rovers with Taylor previously not ruling out the idea of signing the 30-year-old.

However, the Newquay-born striker managed to make just seven league appearances for Bath including their play-off defeat to Braintree, with all of them coming from the bench.

Asked about Vassell's current situation, the Rovers manager didn't exactly say that the striker won't be joining the club permanently but certainly gave an indication that that wasy the case, saying: "He has been [training]. But I think Bath had their play-off game on Tuesday so I think his season is finished. He's not come in this week on the back of that game. I think he came on for a 20 minute cameo in relation to that.

"We'll have a conversation with Vas in terms of what's next for himself but we've tried to give him the time and the opportunity with ourselves alongside some competitive football. As with some of our players, he's just not played enough football for such a long period of time and then the conversations at the end of the season will be for what's next."

Unfortunately, Vassell's career over the past seven years has been tarnished by injuries. After scoring 14 goals for then-League Two Luton Town in the 2016/17 season, the striker got a move to Championship side Birmingham for whom he scored just once before sustaining a serious knee injury. A move to Cardiff also failed to bear fruit with injuries limiting the Englishman to just 36 appearances since the start of the 2017/18 campaign.

Admittedly, Rovers are in desperate need of a striker after releasing John Marquis and Harvey Greenslade which has left Chris Martin as the club's only recognised centre-forward after the 35-year-old's one-year extension option was activated. However, following a campaign that was already plagued by injuries, it certainly seems as though this won't be a risk Taylor will take.