Steve Lovell pleased with young side's application as Gills come from behind to beat Crawley at Priestfield.
Gillingham Manager Steve Lovell was a happy man as his young Gills side saw off Crawley Town to end their Checkatrade Trophy campaign with a 2-1 win.
Second-half goals from Elliott List and Bradley Stevenson secured the three points for Gills after falling behind to a Dominic Poleon strike in the first-half.
Looking back on a positive evening Lovell said: “It was very good, I thought we had most of the possession, created quite a few half opportunities. It’s nice to get two goals, the first was a bit scrappy but we don’t get enough of them so I’m happy with that and then Bradley Stevenson got a good goal.
"It’s nice to win games and good for the youngsters to go out there and play like they did.”
Gillingham rung the changes ahead of a busy schedule over the next few weeks and Lovell was pleased to see his youthful Gills side come out winners.
He added: “We go out to win every game, I made ten changes from Saturday and it gave the boys coming back from injury a good opportunity to get some minutes, it's good for us going forward with a very important couple of weeks to get the minutes in.”
Despite a win, Gills exited the competition but Lovell was pleased his squad gave him plenty to ponder ahead of the coming weeks, Lovell said: “It was important for a lot of the boys tonight, especially the younger ones to show me what they can do. I thought Noel Mbo was excellent and the senior boys did everything that was asked of them."
Reflecting on a good evening all round Lovell finished by saying: “It was a good test for us, a good challenge and I asked the boys did they enjoy it and they all did! It was a proper game of football against a proper team. A good positive evening.”
Gills are next in action on Saturday when they travel to the Kassam Stadium to face Oxford United in Sky Bet League 1.