Gillingham boss Steve Evans felt the Portsmouth bench went over the top with their ‘World Cup-like’ celebrations after winning late on at Priestfield.

There were no handshakes at the final whistle between the management teams after a stoppage-time own goal won the game for the visitors after a terrific effort from the Gills. The late goal earned Portsmouth a 1-0 win as Gillingham dropped into the bottom four.

Pompey boss Danny Cowley described his Gills counterpart as “an unreasonable man when he loses” while Evans felt the opposition celebrations were disrespectful. Cowley received a yellow card from the referee after their goal.

Evans said: “The celebrations on the bench resembled World Cup stuff, a bit disrespectful really, it doesn’t matter when you win, you should never be disrespectful, but we will take the pain and we will go again.

“I said pre-match that Portsmouth had got their Christmas with the lack of options we have had [Gills had seven players missing and others playing unfit] and they have got their Christmas early getting three points. It doesn’t matter what they do in the rest of December, they have had their Christmas.”

Gillingham came agonisingly close to taking a point from the match before a deflected shot went in off Jack Tucker in the 93rd minute.

Portsmouth had made much of their own injury issues before the match, particularity in defence, but were well marshalled by former Gills man Connor Ogilvie.

Evans said: “It is a hard one to take because of the manner of it, if they come and outplay us, a lot of people were talking and no more than Cowley himself that they felt if they got an early goal what they could do with us. Yeah, man on the moon.

“They deserved to get beat. We will listen to the nonsense from him and the superstars, their nonsense, but if they are honest, which they never are, they will say they deserved to get beat.

"Second half I felt they had run out of ideas. For all of the big players and moans about who they didn’t have, they had one player missing, Sean Raggett and he is no world star is he? He is a big honest competitor in league 1 and a local boy to Gillingham but they have made it out as if it is a defensive crisis.

“Sean Williams (who also played in central defence) is a player I tried to bring in (at Gillingham) when Portsmouth offered treble his money, back when he came out of Millwall.

“He is a comfortable centre-back in the Championship.

“Connor played many times for me at centre-back. I moved him there for a long period of time. Poor Danny, with that big, big budget and big support, and fantastic facilities, but good luck to him.

“It’s a fantastic football club and fantastic supporters. Good luck to them, they will enjoy their win, they will be singing and dancing but they aren’t silly either.

“I give nothing but total praise and credit to my players and you have to give credit to the Portsmouth players because they never stopped, they kept going and got the goal and that is what you do when you try and grind results out.

“The one thing about the Portsmouth fans is that they are not delusional. They will know they should have lost the game but I have been there and you take that three points.”

On the lack of a handshake, Cowley said: “It’s never nice when someone doesn’t shake your hand. Steve’s pretty unreasonable when he loses unfortunately.”