Steve Evans is a huge fan of the fairy-tale story of Sutton United - but he knows the game is the first of a huge month for Stevenage.

Boro go to Gander Green Lane on Saturday with another five to go before February is out, three more of them on the road.

And he says the challenge United will give them will make sure they are ready for the task ahead.

"I've got so much respect for the manager," said Evans. "I think he tried to have an evolution with his team, it was evolution not revolution, over the last six months from being a very rigid 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1.

"He'd set up in a way that there won a lot of games, they dominated a lot of games and very physical, powerful, tremendous.  

"And I think they tried to have an evolution and went away a bit more from that, but they brought it back and we all try things as coaches but he had the ability to bring it straight back.

"They signed the boy from Peterborough, they've gone back to their standard structure and this is a real tough game for us at Sutton but every game is tough.

Having tasted life in non-league himself, he knows just how impressive and how hard to achieve Sutton's rise to the Football League has been.

Evans said: "I've always had huge, huge admiration for what's gone on in Sutton, from when I started picking them up and noticing them in the Conference, how comfortably they were winning games and how they turned to League Two and they took to it like a duck to water.  

"And I love the way that they go and pluck an unknown and suddenly every manager in League One and League Two likes him.

"It is an ability that Matt and his staff have got.

"For me they play football the right way and they are sporting gentlemen. They'll fight you on the sidelines, it's eye for eye, but as we showed after we played here, we shook hands and had a beer.

"So we have respect."