Andy Hessenthaler was impressed by Gillingham’s performance against Stevenage on Tuesday night but felt his side were let down by sloppy mistakes.

The Gills boss (pictured) felt that both of Stevenage’s goals in a 2-2 draw could have been avoided on an otherwise satisfying evening.

“I thought it was a terrific performance,” he said.

“It wasn’t an easy place to go and Newcastle found that out (in the FA Cup). I thought it was a cracking game and it could have gone either way in the end. Alan Julian has made a couple of cracking saves at the end.

“It’s disappointing that we put ourselves in a winning position through a fantastic well-worked goal.

“We gave a sloppy goal away in the first half and John Nutter knows he has to do better.

“If that was me there I know where the player would have ended up, he would have ended up in the stand and I said that to John. He won the ball and he has to put the fella in the stand as well. The ball was crossed in and the boy heads it in.

“We conceded from two headers and that’s their strength. We earned our goals through good play and I think they earned their goals through mistakes by us.

“The second goal we conceded Mark Bentley held his hands up. He’s let him get in there with a free header after not picking him up. We made a couple of poor decisions on their goals but I was delighted with the performance.”