Portsmouth 5 Gillingham 1: Jonny Williams on target for the Gills in heavy EFL Trophy Southern Group E defeat at Fratton Park

Gillingham’s hopes of becoming the first team to beat Portsmouth this season ended after a torrid second half of their EFL Trophy match.

Tino Anjorin put League 1 leaders Portsmouth infront with an overhead kick but Jonny Williams netted a deserved equaliser before the break. Goals from Ben Stevenson and Kusini Yengi, however, early in the second half put the hosts back in charge.

Abu Kamara added a fourth for Pompey before Ryley Towler made it 5-1 to complete the scoreline.

There was a much-changed side named by interim boss Keith Millen on Tuesday night, giving plenty of young players a chance to shine. The first half was decent enough but the Gills fell apart in the second.

B Team regulars Matty Macarthur and Ike Orji made their first senior starts for the club while the bench was largely made up of youth players, including second-year scholar Stan Skipper.

Gillingham knew a win would be enough to qualify them for the knockout stage of the Trophy competition, but this was a team named with a League 2 match at Walsall firmly as the focus of attention.

Former Southampton youngster Macarthur looked to run at the home defence whenever he got the chance and that won an early corner for the Gills but it was Portsmouth who struck first.

Glenn Morris was back between the sticks for Gills and he was called upon to make a fine early save to keep out Anjorin after he had been played in on goal by Christian Saydee, but from the resultant corner Pompey went infront.

Anjorin was allowed too much time to finish with a close-range overhead kick after the ball had been whipped into the box and taken a deflection off Shad Ogie.

Gillingham recovered well from going a goal down and Morris wasn’t troubled too much for the rest of the