The manager of Gillingham’s midweek opponents has laughed off claims made by Steve Evans about the size of their budget.

Gills boss Evans claimed that Lincoln City’s budget is “three or four times" bigger than their own but the those comments were branded “comical” by Imps boss Michael Appleton.

Evans made the claim in early February ahead of the match at Priestfield which ended in a 3-0 win for Appleton’s men.

The Lincoln boss was asked about the comments during his press conference, prior to this week’s match against the Gills at Sincil Bank, and Lincolnshire Live quoted his reply, saying: “I’d be more than happy putting budgets on tables for everyone to see what they are," and he added the claim was "comical."

Evans had praised the work done by Appleton, saying: “Credit to Michael Appleton, huge credit, they have a super team.

“It is alright having those kinds of resources but look at Ipswich, with even bigger resources, they are not in the same class as Lincoln. You can have resources but you have to spend them wisely. Michael Appleton and Liam Scully the chief exec in my opinion have done an outstanding job beyond words.”

Evans was again in high praise of the City side ahead of this week’s meeting when commenting on the opposition at the weekend.

He said: “Lincoln City have got a fantastic ownership. They have had outstanding finance behind them for eight or nine years now, coming up from the Conference, biggest budget in League 2, top three or four in League 1, but I have been there and you have to spend it well. Michael deserves enormous credit, he and the chief exec are good people, they are a great club. It is a top city.”

Gillingham competed well in the match against Lincoln back in February but ended up losing 3-0, Appleton felt it should have been more.

“We probably should have won the game 5-0,” he said.

“They put it on us at their place and we dealt with it really well. They didn’t have many opportunities. We’re going to have to have that type of game, where we’re really solid.”

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