Many Gillingham fans will get the chance on Friday evening to see Steve Evans’ side for the first time in this strangest of seasons as the Sky Sports cameras descend on Priestfield for the League One clash with pace setters Lincoln City.

Evans addressed the subject of empty stadiums again when the point was brought up at his weekly press briefing, with the Gills boss praising the missing faithful ahead of the game that would have surely packed at Priestfield.

“I think that our supporters – and I’ve always said it – are intelligent as they know the game more than they get credit for!” Evans told us.

“They know Friday night that we’re playing a really gifted side who have conceded just one goal in their last six away games and are absolutely in flying form – they went to Portsmouth and won easily; they demolished Accrington; made five or seven changes the other night when I saw them at Hull (in the EFL Trophy) and won easily as they controlled the game for long spells.”

“Our supporters will know how good the opposition we’re playing are, but I think if we play at our best, they’ll also see that we’re an improved side from last season, and that was tough as we had a real good team last season and we were competitive in all areas.”

“So, from our point of view, if the boys produce the type of performance that they can do, then I’m sure that our supporters will be pleased with what we’ve got and what they’ve got to come back and see!”

With limited movement on Deadline Day at Priestfield, Evans was a relieved manager that he didn’t lose any of his squad despite reported offers for Messrs Akinde, Graham, O’Keefe and Dempsey. “I woke up on Deadline Day absolutely convinced in myself that I would lose one or two of the squad” the Gills boss admitted.

“The offers that we were getting were getting to the stage that I knew that the Chairman would have to put the Football Club first, and that’s very tough when you’re a manager.”

“The Chairman said that he’s always had a season where he gets a phone call about “a player” with the most recent being Tom Eaves – prior to that it would have been Bradley Dack and before that John Egan – I think it was different this season!”

“But thankfully, the Chairman stood strong! He’s controlled and batted the finances to be in at the level we need to be during this pandemic. When I talk about us having the lowest budget in League One, he sees it from a different perspective when he said it to me that we may have the lowest resources given to the teams in the League, but we can afford to pay those players, and we can afford to pay our bills, and we cannot take this Football Club to be a Bury or a Bolton or seven or eight other clubs who didn’t meet their January payroll and are still struggling to pay them this week. So, our Chairman should be applauded particularly in these difficult times…”

In the transfer window a number of Evans’ former loanees at Priestfield have again been loaned out by the parent clubs – a fact that the Gills boss hasn’t missed.

“If you let players move on from your football club, there’s a saying in football that they always come back and bite you on the bum! I think that every young player who sits in every first team manager’s office wants those young players to go and bounce and have a career and get their judgement wrong.”

“I can take great pride in that but it’s not a great statistic. I can take great pride in the fact that I’ve not released one player who’s gone and played higher than the level that I’ve let them go from.”

“So, from that point of view, you think that you’re getting the judgement right, but there would be nothing more pleasing for me than to allow a lad to move on and suddenly he’s playing every week in the Championship. You take something unique from a young player…”

Picture supplied by Gillingham Football Club.