Gillingham return to competitive action this weekend in the Carabao Cup but manager Steve Evans won’t be taking any risks with his players.

He has a number of players recovering from strains and nobody will be risked against Southend United in a game that is being used as an extension of the club’s pre-season campaign.

Gills’ summer training camp has been shorter than Evans would have hoped and this weekend’s game, along with their midweek Football Trophy game against Crawley Town, will give the manager extra time to prepare before the main event begins.

Next Saturday the Gills kick off their League 1 campaign against Hull City and that’s the main focus for Evans, who admits his squad won’t be 100% prepared this weekend.

He said: “We will probably be 80% and that is down to the lack of time to be ready compared to other years, but do we want to win a competitive game on Saturday? Yes we do.

“There is no prize money in the League Cup early rounds. From our point of view, we will be strong but will I be taking risks with any of our players, who is even 80-90% fit, where normally in a league game you would be playing them? I wouldn’t play them on Saturday, for sure.”

Jordan Graham has a slight groin issue while Trae Coyle has also been suffering with a strain. He returned to parent club Arsenal for treatment but was expected back with the Gills before the weekend.

Fellow newcomers Christian Maghoma and Kyle Dempsey were both pulled out of last weekend’s friendly with Leyton Orient as a precaution.

Evans said: “They had slight niggles and it was my decision and I used the experience that I have got. I have to make sure we have as many players for Hull City as possible.

“We will put a team on the pitch that we hope is very competitive and does enough to win the game but we will make sure we use the two games to make sure everyone has enough minutes in their legs and to make sure everyone has an equal fighting chance of being selected against Hull City next Saturday, when it really, really matters.

“We are not going to win the Carabao Cup but we can get promoted from League 1, so I have to protect us for Hull City.

“Supporters should take time and look at the opening seven games at home and realise what an incredibly tough spell it is going to be for us, but we will be ready as best we can. We are all looking forward to competitive football returning again.”

Evans has admitted it’s been his biggest football challenge so far, putting together a squad this summer in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis and then losing players such as striker Mikael Mandron and captain Max Ehmer.

On a personal level, Gills’ Glaswegian boss has also been grieving for his mother, who passed away suddenly in mid-August, having battled cancer.

He said: “Thankfully I have a beautiful family and some very good friends around me, none more so than the players, who all sent me individual messages.

“It has been tough, there has been lots of tears shed, but my mum would always say life is for the living and get on with it. We will see her in due course.

“After going through those last few weeks I am now looking forward to leading some young men that, despite their tender age, have shown a real maturity towards myself, a manager who had just lost his mum.

“I am looking forward to going into battle with them. A lot of them are inexperienced, we will have some bad days, there will be mistakes. Our job is not to be overly critical but to make them aware of what the issues are and for them to understand and to get on the training ground to make them better, so they don’t do it twice.”

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