Gillingham go into a big week with boss Steve Evans calling for his side to continue with their improving form at Priestfield by now bringing the points home that his side have deserved.

Speaking at this week’s briefing, Evans reflected on two good Cup performances in the last seven days before turning his attention to the visit of Lincoln City this weekend with their long-standing management team now at Huddersfield.

Beginning with Tuesday’s home win over the young Tottenham Hotspur side in the Football League Trophy. Evans said, “There’s no doubt that it was a good performance. It was as comfortable as two nil can be – from a distance you might think it was a dangerous result, but Joe Walsh never had a serious save to make and probably in the transition we should have penetrated further into the box and perhaps added to the goal tally.”

“Some individual performances were good and that creates competition, so overall it was a pleasant evening for football! We knew that we couldn’t progress in the tournament and we said to the players what you have to do is to create a positive thought towards the team for Saturday, and some of them have done that!”

Looking back to last Saturday’s draw at the Stadium of Light in the FA Cup, the Gills boss told us, “When you go away from home in League or Cup you aim to be in the game at the seventy minute mark as we all know it’s difficult especially to go away from home.”

“We went to Sunderland last week looking to be in the Cup tie on seventy minutes – as we were at one-one and should have come away with a convincing win, but we didn’t! But the performance in the second half in particular was very encouraging and if we get more of the same at Priestfield on Saturday, I’ll be very pleased…”

Next up are a Lincoln City side still coming to terms with new management. “They’re a good side – they’ve had three or four weeks of transition since Danny Cowley went off to Huddersfield Town who obviously did a fantastic job.” said Evans.

“I wasn’t really surprised when he left as he’s seen some big jobs go already at Leeds move on, Stoke move on, Sheffield Wednesday move on and I think he’s probably thought that as a young manager who along with Nicky have worked absolute wonders at Lincoln and had probably thought that their boat had sailed.”

“And of course, with Huddersfield having new owners who I don’t know, they’ve gone in there with some tremendous backing and Nicky and Danny have done well already. It wouldn’t surprise me if that success continues.”

“But now you’ve got Michael Appleton who’s completely different and we’ve seen that transition in the lead up to the game – they’ve become more and more Michael’s team that we’ll play on Saturday that’s full of good players – I had two of them that won back to back in the Championship with Rotherham along with Jon Akinde who I had at Crawley – I know a lot of them and they will be fierce, tough opponents and a really tough side!”

Meanwhile, Evans pointed out how he already has one eye on strengthening his squad in the coming weeks:

“We’re getting to crunch time in mid-November as the transfer window opens in January giving them six weeks to stake a claim that they should be around Gillingham trying to get into the team, playing their part or it’s time to go and ply their trade elsewhere. They’re all brilliant lads who are all fighting so hard and the performance particularly on Tuesday showed that.”

“Going into the weekend, Matty Willock is very close to being included – he’s had a week on the grass and next week the medical team will look to build up his fitness. He’s getting fitter and fitter all the time, and we’ll get him involved in practice matches – he’s one of the best midfield players in League One and every day we haven’t had him has been a loss, but if he’s not fit there is absolutely no point rushing him back now until he is completely ready, in hopefully a week to ten days when we’ve waited seven to ten weeks.”

“Apart for Matty, everyone else should be available for the weekend apart from Tom O’Connor, who’s away with the Irish. That’s good as when you’ve only got nineteen or twenty players you need everyone available and everyone is.”

“Everyone’s positive after the second half at Sunderland which just demonstrated what we’re capable of and the other group carried that on Tuesday. So, we need to carry that forward again against Lincoln on Saturday… There’s no point thinking that it’s going to be the Sunderland team because the chances are that it won’t be!”

“We now need now some results to back up the home performances. I get fed up explaining when we’ve drawn a game that we should win and there’s only so many times you can say that to someone before they stop listening.”

“But the boys know it which is the important thing and they’re as frustrated as we are. We’re in good form individually but it’s time to win some games – what we’ve not done is – I think we’ve only won one game when we were a bit fortunate was away at Accrington – but we’ve not nicked a game or had a decision go for us when we can say that we’ve been lucky there.”

“But in football and I’ve believed throughout my career that you make your own luck, so we just need to keep the performances high individually and collectively, keep working as hard as the boys are and rest will take care of itself!”