Steve Evans was quick to congratulate Maidstone after their FA Cup victory over Stevenage.

The former Gillingham boss went into United’s dressing room to pay tribute to the non-league side, who won yesterday’s third-round tie 1-0 thanks to a Sam Corne penalty.

“What I’ve said to them is they’ve been a credit to their football club, a credit to themselves and I hope they get their ample rewards in the draw, I really do,” Evans told reporters.

“For us, I don’t think we gave enough respect on the pitch.

“Not meaningfully but I don’t think we gave enough respect in the first half.

“Certainly, Maidstone looked the better team than us in the first half.

“I don’t know if it’s a penalty - it certainly looks a penalty - but I need to look at it back, and then second half you just give them something to hold on to.

“You cannot miss the simplest of chances that we make here today.

“You cannot imagine that you don’t take one of six or seven but we didn’t so congratulations to George (Elokobi, Stones boss) and Maidstone.”

Stevenage, 2-1 winners at Aston Villa at this stage last season, put Maidstone under plenty of pressure after the break.

But they couldn’t make it count and now focus all their efforts on a League 1 promotion challenge.

Evans said: “Second half, we cannot have all that dominance, all that play, all that forward momentum, all those chances.

“I can’t believe we’ve missed four or five of them but we have, so we pay the price.

“We have to live with this now. We’ve been on the opposite end of it.

“We’ll go away and we’ll go back on the training ground and we’ll forget about the FA Cup.

“It’s not a cliche, we can’t think about it because we’re out of it.”

The fourth-round draw takes place at 7.50pm on Monday, before the Wigan v Manchester United tie on ITV1. Maidstone are ball No.30.