Steve Evans felt his Gillingham side were outstanding as they secured a 1-0 win at in-form Accrington

Captain Kyle Demspey scored the only goal of the game in the first minute of added time in the first half, getting on the end of Alex MacDonald’s cutback and curling the ball home from the edge of the area.

MacDonald forced a couple of saves out of Stanley goalkeeper Nathan Baxter, while Michael Nottingham thumped a header against the crossbar after 48 minutes for the home side.

There was a grandstand finish as Gills keeper Jack Bonham produced a superb save in the 90th minute to keep out Colby Bishop as Gillingham held on for a much-needed win after two league losses.

“I thought we were outstanding for the first 70 minutes and in the final 20 minutes we showed another side to our game as we had to work hard and defend well,” said Evans.

“I was disappointed it was only 1-0 at the interval but it was a special goal, I think there was around six or seven passes on the counter attack and then it was a good finish.

“We were at the races for 90 minutes but I felt comfortable with the side.

“We had Olly Lee back with us, from Hearts on loan, and Callum Slattery making his debut from Southampton and I think it’s the strongest side I have put out this season. They were part of a good team performance.

“A sign of a strong side is having a solid bench and we had a number of options on the bench.

“We are still short of two or three bodies but hopefully we can get them.

“It’s tough to get a point here so to get three is a boost going into Tuesday night’s game against Lincoln which will be a different kettle of fish.”

Stanley boss John Coleman was disappointed his side, who dropped out of the play-offs after a previous good run of just one loss in 11 league games, did not get going.

“We were nowhere near good enough, I take my hat off to Gillingham, they were the better team in the first half, they took the game to us and it was no surprise when they scored.

“In the second half, they barely troubled us, it was one-way traffic and we missed three good chances. Those are the fine lines.

“We have got into a rut of when we are favourites to win games we don’t win them, and we need to shake that tag off as it will damage us.

“We didn’t attack like we should, we looked disjointed, we weren’t aggressive enough. Everyone was throwing bouquets at us after we beat Charlton on television but Gillingham are as good as anybody in this league and we seemed to think we could coast. You can’t coast through games, you get punished and we did.”