Sunday’s FA Cup game will be the biggest one yet for Gillingham goalkeeper Jack Bonham.

The long-time Brentford understudy is enjoying life as a first-choice keeper with the Gills and they face Premier League West Ham this weekend.

Bonham said: “It is my first game against a Premier League team and I am buzzing to hopefully play in it. We will be up for it and we will give it our best shot.

“It will be my biggest game, same as some of the other lads, but we have no reason to fear it. We know they have some great players but we will go out there and do what we can.”

During his time on loan at Carlisle he played at Hillsborough against Sheffield Wednesday two years ago - reward for defeating the Gills in the second round of that year’s FA Cup competition.

Carlisle had taken Wednesday to a replay and lost 2-0 in Yorkshire. Bonham is confident this Gills team can give the Hammers a tough test.

He said: “Everyone is excited. We feel 100% we can cause an upset.

“The FA Cup is what it is, everyone knows it is a chance to take down one of the big teams and put yourself in the hat for the next round.”

The players had Thursday off to recover from another tough league encounter, winning a point at home against Portsmouth.

Rest and recovery is crucial says the keeper after a tough and profitable Christmas period. The Gills are six unbeaten in the league.

He said: “We will focus on rest and recovery now and make sure we are right.

“It’s such a congested period and this game has been in the back of our minds, but we knew we had to focus on the (league) games over that busy period. Now we can fully focus on West Ham and we are excited for it.”

Cup commitments means the Gills will be taking a break from the league, with their scheduled game against Southend now being played on February 18.

The Gills are just a few points adrift of the top six and a play-off place.

Bonham said: “We knew over the Christmas period that if we got a few results we could be in the mix.

“It would have been nice to win the game (against Portsmouth) and to have been firmly in there but we are not far off it and we now we can really put ourselves in it.

“We deserve to be there 100%. It took us a bit of time to gel as a team and the management team to get their ideas across and really stick to us and that has happened now. I feel we are definitely going to be in there.”