Manager Steve Evans is confident the League 1 table will look a lot different by the end of the season.

Gillingham dropped into the bottom four for the first time this season after a weekend loss to Portsmouth but Evans expects to have all of his currently injured players back by January.

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The Gills have been forced to raid the youth team in the last few weeks to bolster their squad, with up to 10 senior players missing for some of their games.

Gillingham manager Evans insists there is time to turn things around.

He said: “We are not running out of time, there are 20 games played and I am telling you now, that table will look totally different after 46 games, for sure. It will look totally different.

“We have to work hard to get our injured players back and we have got some of them back now so we can work on a little bit more of their fitness.

“We will do a bit of work and be ready for two tough games on the road (at Rotherham on Tuesday and then Fleetwood on the Saturday) but people will see the best side of us around Christmas or just after because suddenly there will be five or six very good players back.

“I could cry when I go in the treatment room and see the names, but out chairman has said he’s never seen it in 25 years and I have never had anything remotely close to this.”

Gillingham have lost their last three in the league without scoring.

Evans said: “We have dropped in there (bottom four) but we know what we have been missing. We have had four academy kids on the park.

“I am proud of youngsters who have come and helped and supported us, we are putting them on the pitch, ideally we wouldn’t, but we are having to. I am proud of how the first team group have received them. We are as one.”