Steve Evans admitted some Gillingham fans might have been surprised to see his line-up for Swindon after saying pre-match he would be making changes.

Evans was unhappy with the first half performance on Tuesday night at Fleetwood but kept faith with his starters, the fifth game in succession he has named the same XI. The Gills manager admitted that hadn’t been his plan on Thursday.

Explaining his thinking, he said: “I think supporters will see some of my words and think, ‘what’s he on about’ but on Thursday when I wrote a team out we had Robbie McKenzie, Alex MacDonald, Matt Willock and John Akinde starting.”

By Friday, it had all changed as Evans looked back at previous performances which included wins over MK Dons and Ipswich along with a draw at Portsmouth that deserved more.

Evans said: “We broke it back down and said, out of the run of games we’ve had, those lads have given us a bad 45 minutes but they never lacked commitment at Fleetwood and let’s be honest, the referee last week was awful. He apologised, hopefully he will learn from it, but you don’t get the points back.

“On Friday I changed it a bit, I still wanted to keep Tommy O’Connor in the side and wanted to give Ryan Jackson the opportunity to be fit. He didn’t train on Friday but I made a decision after a fitness test.

Jackson played and those that made an impact off the bench at Fleetwood were again left out of the XI.

“I will now see how fresh the boys are Monday and those that are freshest will play at SIncil Bank (against Lincoln City on Tuesday).”

Youth defender Harvey Lintott travelled with the team on Saturday but was close to being involved while right-back Jackson was a doubt after picking up a midweek knock.

Evans said: “At one stage Harvey was even being considered to start, certainly Paul Raynor (the assistant manager) had him under consideration.

“He is a young kid, he has appeared on the bench and he was with us on Saturday, incase we had any overnight reaction with Jackson and with any of the others and Harvey would certainly have been in the 18 and it would have been great to have had him on the bench because I would have given him his Football League debut.”

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