Gillingham boss Steve Evans admits the decision to leave Celtic loanee Scott Robertson out on Tuesday will have hurt the player.

Evans says he took him out of the XI for the midweek game against Wimbledon because he didn’t want the youngster to suffer any more injury problems - as has happened before.

Robertson, 19, has had a start-stop time at the Gills since joining on loan from Celtic but Evans says leaving him out of the squad was the sensible thing to do.

“He is fine,” said Evans, when asked why the player was left out after starting at the weekend.

“He gave us 60 minutes on Saturday after being out a month with a hamstring. The last time we gave him back to back games he niggled his hamstring again and we didn’t want to take that chance. It was purely my decision.”

Evans says he called Celtic to tell them Robertson was being left out - they’ve been sending scouts to watch his games - and says the Scottish side are pleased with his progress.

“He is simply a wonderful talent,” Evans said.

“He will have gone away to his apartment really down and devastated but I will contact him to say what the reason was.

“I spoke to the people at Celtic and they think he is being educated here, they have sent people to watch him and I talked to them because I said I wasn’t going to include him, they are delighted with his progress.”

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