Gillingham boss Steve Evans has been talking to KSN ahead of the biggest test of his managerial career here in Kent.

That test has come as The Gills prepare to face the League leaders and one of the favourites for the League One title on consecutive Saturdays with a trip to Bristol in between!

Evans told us, “We’ve facing a big week – we’re playing top of the League Wycombe Wanderers on Saturday and then onto Bristol before coming back to play Ipswich who are arguably everyone’s favourites to be promoted.”

“I read the other day that Ipswich have got something like 32 first team squad and we’ve got something like half of that in terms of senior pros, but it’s not about Ipswich as we cannot allow ourselves to think about either them or Bristol Rovers before we face this weekend – but it is a big seven days for us!”

“Our performances I know them in my head. Burton at home we didn’t play well after the first fifteen minutes we were poor; Coventry away first half we were poor and Tranmere last week second half we were poor. Other than that, our performances have been good – they’ve been top six performances, but we need to kill teams off when we’re producing that top six form.”

“That said, we’ve got this far quicker than I expected. It’s quicker than when we were at Mansfield where we had a similar turn around. When you go in as a manager you want to go into a settled team and you just must keep things going.”

“Everyone gave Mick Harford all the credit at Luton last year but in many conversations, I had with him at games, he admitted that he didn’t change a thing because it was very successful. But when you’re having to bring in new players into a new group, you’re going to get some inconsistencies, but what we’ve achieved already here is quicker than it was at Mansfield. But it’s not about Mansfield, it’s now about what we can achieve at Priestfield.”

Returning to Priestfield leading the line for Wycombe is the larger than life Adebayo Akinfenwa – someone who Evans knows well.

“Bayo’s a good friend of mine and I always encourage my centre halves to fight with him for ninety minutes and believe me you have to fight with him!”

“That said, he’s been here and is a wonderful personality and a terrific person and we’ll still have an embrace before the game.”

Grimacing Evans went on, “I just don’t want him to hug me too tight as when he does it takes me five minutes to breathe and he thinks it’s fun!”

Looking ahead to this weekend, Evans said, “Wycombe are top because they deserve to be and have enjoyed a couple of late wins, and winning breeds the right characters in the dressing room and they’ve got them.”

“It’s going to be different on Saturday as I wonder if Gareth (Ainsworth, the Wycombe boss) will have his mind elsewhere – Lincoln perhaps (the Wycombe boss has this week been linked to replace Danny Cowley as manager of Lincoln City). We want to make it tough for Wycombe tomorrow as they’re top of the League!”

“We’ve got three or four players who have been struggling with what we hope is just a 24-hour virus, but I think we’ll have to wait until Saturday before we know exactly where we are.”

“It’s nothing major – it’s the sort of bug that we’ve all had 24/48-hour bug – we’re just hoping at the moment that it is a 24 hour one. Three or four of the boys and a couple of the youth boys were sent home in the week, but we’re looking on the positives that they will be back for Saturday.”

“Matty Willock will miss Saturday and probably the next couple of weeks too, but Regan (Charles-Cook) is fine – he had a run out in midweek and has shaken off the hamstring problem he had and is good to go.”

“Saturday, I think will be a good benchmark for us, as if you’re not the League leaders the only thing that you can do when you get the opportunity is to beat the League leaders against the benchmark of the League leaders. They deserve to be top of the League on their performances and their results so far, so we’ll know by five o’clock Saturday just how far we are away from that!”