Gillingham boss Steve Evans has been looking ahead to this weekend’s trip to Bolton Wanderers on the back of three precious points in midweek as he takes his squad to where it all began for Steve Evans – the player!
“We’ve played well in the last couple of games,” the Gills boss told us. “We had lots if free kicks and lots of corners and kept the opposition keeper busy – so we are getting there, but we have got a small squad.
The Chairman was very right when he said that we have twenty-four players because he sees the payroll. But we have three players out injured and two more out of loan and that brings it straight down to nineteen, which is fine and a good number to work with.
But we seem to be getting one or two out of the treatment room as one or two head into it. I’ve always said that if we can get our best eleven onto the pitch, we can compete against anyone in League One.”
“But the issue comes when I look behind me on the bench and I think just once this season, the Burton Albion game, when I thought that this is a really strong bench today! Most weeks it’s been youth players who in time will be great players for this Football Club but they’re just not ready – yet!”
“I look at the investments of clubs that are around us have made and we sit just three points behind a club like Ipswich with a good manager like Paul Cook and I’m sure he’s frustrated with their position. But we’re no different but its tight all the way down the table, the top seven or eight are tight and then I think will be the rest of the League and I think that that’s the way it’s going to be all season.”
There will be full of memories for the Gills boss this weekend as he takes his side to the Northwest to where it all began for him as a player.
“When I was 15 years old, Bolton Wanderers asked permission for me to come out of school a few months early and go and join them with Ian Greaves as manager.
“They were a fantastic team, and I can quote most the team off the top of my head. I was very fortunate to be around some great players although I was never good enough! How could I have failed to have been influenced alongside some great players like that?
“They were really good people – how can you not learn when you watch players like Frank Worthington train; how can you not learn when you watch Alan Gowling, Willie Morgan, even Peter Reid, Sam Allardyce, Neil McNab, Micky Walsh, incredible talent all over the pitch! It was a brilliant education for me, and I will never ever forget my time at Bolton.”