Gillingham had players running on empty at half-time on Tuesday admitted boss Steve Evans.

Olly Lee managed to get back out on the field quicker than expected against Cheltenham and there were starts for Mustapha Carayol and Robbie McKenzie. All three could have done with more time to prepare. The match ended in a 2-0 defeat for Gillingham.

Gills’ injury crisis meant they had no option but to ask senior players to come back before they would do normally.

Evans said: “Muzzy trained once for us last week and played 15 minutes at Crewe (on Saturday) but he shouldn’t be anywhere near us.

“Olly Lee trained on Monday for 10 minutes, coming back from two broken toes and he shouldn’t be anywhere near us but both of the lads have huge hearts and they want to play football, they want to help us, the opposite is what? Start the boys on the bench? Some people think they should play at this football club, I don’t, totally different opinions.

“Olly and Mustapha were sitting in the dressing room after 45 minutes and they had nothing left but we asked them to go back out and see if they could find something.”

Both managed to make it to around the 80-minute mark before Evans turned to his kids as replacements.

Dan Phillips lasted 86 minutes but he had felt a niggle in the warm-up.

Robbie McKenzie managed the full game, despite pre-match concerns that he might not make it at all. He came off injured on Saturday at Crewe as he continued to recover from a knock he suffered against Cheltenham in the previous FA Cup game.

“They were telling us they were extremely tired,” said Evans. “They were telling us they had nothing left and that creates further injuries so we had to look behind us and we see the school kids and we had to put them on, we had no option. I am sure for them it is proving to be a wonderful experience, but for the senior boys it is hurting and for us staff it is hard to take.”