It’s all about the c-word for Gillingham boss Steve Evans.

The Gills beat Sunderland at home on Saturday and have now won their last five games at Priestfield without conceding.

Evans is on the guard against complacency.

He said: “That’s five clean sheets in a row at home. I don’t know if that’s a club record but it’s admirable.

“You can use the c-word in football, not the c-word that people might think, but I am talking about either confidence or complacency.

“We spoke all week about not being complacent. We have been playing really well and we know we’ve deserved to win matches but the minute you get complacent, you get beaten don’t you?

"You then don’t deserve to win and you are not on the front foot.

“We are going to Fleetwood next week and we will prepare properly. We need to be ready, we need to go to Fleetwood and have lots of energy.”

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The Gills are certainly full of confidence after beating Sunderland for the second time in three weeks. Before their weekend league win, they had knocked them out of the FA Cup after a first-round replay.

Gillingham have made some good teams look ordinary of late, with Doncaster and Lincoln leaving Priestfield well beaten.

Evans’ side have been working hard on the pitch to ensure they have the upper hand. But getting the right level of work rate has taken time to implement, the manager admitted.

He said: “We spoke to the group pre-season and I think their relentless and our relentless were different.

“Players said ‘I played like that with so and so’ but their relentless wasn’t our relentless.

“We are relentless on the side, as people know, and we expect our players to be the same. Relentless doesn’t always make you win a game but there is no disputing we have deserved to win games recently.

“We should have got four or five against Wimbledon and we got an apology for two penalties not given, but that is irrelevant three days later, we just want the decisions good or bad.

“At the start of the season and a few weeks in we were nicking a result. We didn’t think the players were quite working to the levels we needed them to work at but they have been doing it for a few weeks now.”

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