Gareth Ainsworth was impressed with his side's second-half performance as Gillingham beat Northampton Town 2-1 to advance to the next round of Jersey Mike's Trophy on Tuesday at Sixfields.
Ainsworth was pleased with how his team adapted to changing their shape at half-time, and credited the substitutes for the positive impact they had on the game.
With the win, the Gills progressed to the knockout stages of the EFL Trophy for the first time in six years. The Gillingham manager outlined some of the benefits it will have going forward.
Post-match thoughts...
I am really proud of the boys. Especially that second-half performance when we lost a couple to knocks in the first-half, so we have to make sure that they are okay. The way that the boys dealt with that at half-time: we made three changes before the start of the second-half and then two in the second-half. Half of the team has changed. We changed the shape, and the lads dealt with it really well.
I thought that there were some outstanding performances in the second-half, and I won't name names.
We deserved to win that, I thought. The goal we conceded was poor. It was right after half-time, and we talked about that, but we made some fantastic moves today. I think that Sheldon [Kendall] has hit the post at the end of a brilliant passing move.
We looked strong and quick on the counter-attack. All the subs made a difference and were positive.
Benefits of progressing to the next round...
You are four games away from Wembley, and that is where you are at now. That's the beauty of it. You are really close. If you can turn up on these games, and I think people will start ramping it up then.
We have players coming back. Liam Gordon will be very thankful of this game, as he may be one to use and get minutes in this game. Zane Albarus has got them tonight. Will Goodwin will come back and get some minutes in the next round, and hopefully he will be back before that.
It gives us a chance to attack another competition, definitely. It gives me a chance to try things. We went to a 4-3-3 in the second-half, and I thought that it worked really well. The two wingers caused all sorts of problems.
On the players that went off during the game...
Andy Smith, the reason that I left him out on Saturday was because of his ankle, and it has proven to have been the right decision because he only got through 20 minutes, and he had to come off with the ankle injury. That's a whack.
The other two are muscle injuries that we are going to have to have a look at. A couple of players were removed for that. That was the unfortunate bit.
