Simon King is relishing the opportunity to face a strong Birmingham side on Saturday.

The Gills centre back, who was guilty of conceding a penalty against Ipswich on Wednesday, is looking forward to another test of character this weekend.

He said: "The penalty was my fault and I shouldn’t have dived in but that’s happened and its best to get that out of the way in pre-season.

"It’s good to test your wits against the kind of players like Kevin Phillips who has been scoring goals for years now at the very top level. It will be good to play against him and get used to his kind of movement and hopefully I can prevent him scoring a few goals.

"Last Saturday gave us and kick up the backside against Grays. We thought maybe we could just turn up and roll them over but they worked hard and were difficult to break down.

"We needed that. The gaffer wasn’t happy and he told us so. We took that into the Ipswich game and put on a better performance.

"To get a 1-1 draw against a side that will be challenging in the Championship is a credit to the boys."