Steve Evans can't promise Stevenage fans an FA Cup win or success in the Carabao Cup - but a challenge for the Papa John's Trophy is well within the realms of possibility.

Boro saw off Arsenal U21 in the round of 32 with goals from David Amoo, Dan Sweeney and Arthur Read giving them a 3-2 win.

And with three wins separating his side from a place at Wembley, he has his sights set on glory.

He said: "One of the briefs I had when I was Peterborough United manager was to do really well in the league and have a run in the Papa John’s, well not a run, win it. 

"That was my brief.

"I’ve always said we won’t win the FA Cup but we hope to do well in it, we can’t win the League Cup but we hope to do well in it but we can win the Papa John’s and we can do well in the league. 

"Those are the core objectives and we’ll see if the draw is kind to us." 

His small squad were put through the ringer before kick-off, ravaged by a sickness bug, and then had to battle past a young Arsenal side brimming with players confident on the ball.

Evans said: "If you were here for either team, you’ve seen five goals, some good, some sloppy, and certainly seen some great play from both teams at different times. 

"It is a good win against a fantastic young Arsenal side who went to Cambridge and won easy, went to Northampton and won easy and when they went 1-0 up after six minutes probably thought they were going to win easy again. 

"We’ve got fantastic character and we’ve had a bad sickness bug in the camp for about a week that’s hit a lot of players.

"What you can’t do is get them here if they are sitting down, if that gives you a bit of a clue. 

"That’s a little problem. 

"That made us light in numbers and limited in what we could do. The bug changed the team from what was in our thoughts on the drive home on Saturday and then we had to change our shape and our system even as late as lunchtime today. 

"It appears to be a 24-hour thing so we are confident, as much as we can be, that we’ll get rid of a lot of it before we go to King’s Lynn. 

"But I thought we deserved to win [against Arsenal]."

The young Gunners had taken an early lead through Nathan Butler-Oyedeji and Evans admitted the style of football played by the club did cause them initial problems.

"We took a while to get used to a system that you only see at U23 level," he said. 

"I’ve always said I would shut the curtains rather than watch it, if I had to watch it every week. 

"But I'll add quickly that there are some very talented players [in academies], not only at Arsenal, but at all the big clubs. 

"The question is if they are educating them to play U23 football or educating them to play men’s football?

"It’s OK if you go and develop into a player at Arsenal. 

"It took us 15 minutes to understand how to combat it but then we dominated."

There was delight at the different names on the scoresheet too, meaning the 42 goals scored so far this year have come from 16 players.

Among them this time was David Amoo with his first for the club.

The Boro boss said: "We wanted to play David in a position which he is best at, which is high and out wide on the right. 

"I was talking to Paul Hurst after the game on Saturday and he felt David was absolutely terrific when he came on and I thought that as well. 

"I’m really pleased for David. He’s worked hard behind the scenes to shake off knock after niggle after knock and he made a real positive contribution at Grimsby and then worked really hard here and got his reward."