Mikael Mandron almost provided the dream finish on Tuesday night for the Gills.

There were doubts pre-match whether he would make the game after having a double puncture on the motorway and arriving in a taxi.

He came off the bench for Gillingham with 10 minutes left and only a great block on the line from Blackpool keeper Jak Alnwick denied him with his first touch.

“We told him to get here when he could,” said Gills boss Steve Evans, who was already one player short of a full complement of substitutes.

“Nobody means to do it and he sent us pictures of two burst tyres and his car is pulled into the services. He was trying to get to the game in an Uber.

“These things happen. We were depleted but you just ask the players to give you everything they’ve got and to get the ball down and pass it.

“I think he got a taxi and left his car at the services. We had told him to forget his car!”

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He came on as a late substitute and had a real impact.

“With his first touch they block it off the line,” said Evans.

“It would have great for him had he scored because of his circumstances to get to the ground. He was a presence, he wasn’t against Burton.”

Evans had a space free on the bench but made no apologies for not sticking a youngster on there.

He said: “If you want to play the political game you put a kid on the bench but you then give a kid false hope, you give the parents false hope.

“They turn up and they bring the family because they think he’s on the bench but you know you are never going to use him.

“We have already shown that if they are good enough we will use them. We have some good kids in the system but they are not quite good enough to be playing against the likes of Blackpool.

“We had three kids, Joe Walsh, Jack Tucker and Henry Woods. Really we only had Marshy (Mark Marshall) and Mika (Mandron) who could come on and play a part.”

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