The Gills boss praises his team following New Year's Day display at stadium:mk
Steve Evans was full of praise for his heroic Gillingham players after they battled MK Dons on New Year’s Day for a hard-fought point at Stadium MK.
Now the Gillingham boss wants to build on the positive start to 2022 and is calling for more of the same when they face Ipswich this Saturday, declaring that “this is the start of what we are all about."
The Kent side are still in the relegation mix, currently sitting third from bottom, but with an encouraging performance and a well-earned point in the bag, coinciding with the return of some of the side’s big guns, the storms clouds that loomed large over 2021 seem like they are finally starting to lift.
Following the game, Evans said: “My players were outstanding. The biggest compliment to how resolute they were is that Jamie Cumming didn’t need to make a save. When you come to this stadium and see the quality of MK Dons, you see that they make chances but we restricted them to long shots.
“We had players who shouldn’t have been out there but we had to keep them on because they were in the heat of the battle. We made them nervous and we got a well-deserved point that stops the run we have been on, which has been awful. The boys worked as hard as they could possibly work, and that’s the minimum that we need.
“The fans have seen a Gillingham performance similar to 15 months ago; strong, physical and competitive. The fans, to a man, lady, boy and girl, applauded the players when they came over to them. They would have been going home in the car saying, “this is our team.”
“We have had players missing with Covid, players being sent home and injuries. It’s been the toughest two months of my life. If we get players back from Covid and out of the treatment room then we will have no issues and we will be fine. We would have beaten a lot of teams with this performance today.
“I am proud of the players. They did their jobs really well. We needed men and we got them. Now we need to get back on the training pitch and work hard and get ready for Ipswich. This Club has a proud tradition of being able to fight. Our supporters are our 12th man, sometimes our 13th man. We have a lot of home games coming up and we are going to need them. We are going to fight!”