Gillingham boss Steve Evans says the EFL’s head of referees Mike Jones was in agreement that last night’s crucial penalty shouldn’t have been awarded.

Fleetwood scored from the spot after just two minutes when Connor Ogilvie was adjudged to have pushed an opponent in the box. Kyle Vassell scored and that goal was the only one of the match.

Evans wasn’t afraid to criticise his own team too after he said all of his “so called big players” failed to shine.

Commenting on the game on Wednesday morning, Evans said: “Last night and this morning I spoke with the EFL head of referees Mike Jones. My conversations was in connection with the very poor performance of our match referee (Marc Edwards) at Fleetwood last night.

“We obviously focused on a few key match incidents, one of course was the penalty awarded to Fleetwood inside the opening minute of the match. At first sight of the footage and careful examination Mike confirmed the decision to award a penalty was wrong. He described the award as so soft that if that was the benchmark for a penalty there would be one every time a ball went in to every penalty area.

“He had further sympathy when our goal in added time was not given by the match referee.

“We travelled over seven hours on Monday and got home at nearly 5am and you do not expect that performance from a referee.

“It does not excuse our first half performance, all our so called big players failed to play with the energy levels you need to win a game.

“We dominated territorially in the second period, missed four good chances but we was always chasing after that disgusting penalty decision inside the first minute.

“Credit to Fleetwood, a good club with good people but we will keep focused on ourselves.”

More on the Gills;

Report: Fleetwood 1 Gillingham 0

Reaction: 'We weren’t at it first half'