Job Done At The Second Time Of Asking

The Addicks secured their place in round 2 at The Artic Stadium last night after a brief scare.

Not unsurprisingly, a much stronger looking side took to the pitch to tackle Cray Valley and they eventually got the job done.

It really shouldn’t have needed a replay nor should Appleton have subjected the club and its fans to the mess of the first tie that required the replay.

Instead of admitting his initial selection error Michael opted to tell us that he found out about some of his players as a result of the game in S.E.7. He ought not to have required that game to do so.

Mess around in the Football League Trophy if you want to see how players respond in games. Don’t do it in the Cup risking the worst defeat in the club’s history. God knows we’ve had some bad ones so it’s indicative of how very bad defeat would have been.

Alfie May had a stonking game and set us on our way scoring following lovely control and finish.

Sadly, Walker (always likely to be our Achilles heel) gave Cray a lifeline with a reckless challenge just outside the area. A penalty ensued along with a yellow card and K Lisbie junior dispatched it. Good for him.

I often wonder why keepers are immune from being subbed and I was wondering again last night. Walker was poor in both games and his ill-judged actions yesterday really ought to have seen him hooked at half time.

I really hope we never need to call upon Walker in a league game.

All in all it proved to be a minor set back as the second half saw us impose ourselves against tiring limbs finally finding the net another 5 times.

Job done. However, there a few points of interest. CBT was replaced at half time and I’ve yet to see why that was. Much like Saturday he was pretty ineffectual. It’s a cause for concern because that’s a game and a half where he’s not done anything.

Tedic didn’t get off the bench. Again, I’m going to bang the drum for him. Miles scored but did little else and didn’t appear up for it for whatever reason. I’ll wager that if Tedic had performed like that (and Miles was another who didn’t do much on Saturday) he’d have got some stick.

However, the loanee isn’t being handled very well and hasn’t really had the chance to show what he can do in his proper position. Appleton may not like him for some reason but this is the same Appleton that saw fit to leave Louie Watson out of the side recently. As such, I’ll not hold any great store by that!

Finally, whatever game we’re playing, I don’t understand why we have everyone back at corners. Playing an 8^th tier side and we’re still doing it! Arghh! What on earth!

It’s things like the above that mean I don’t have great faith in Appleton. He’s got a lot to do to change my opinion of him. He’s an adequate manager but that’s all I can see at present.

Anyway, we’ve got a break this weekend before some nonsense against Sutton ahead of a trip to Carlisle the following Saturday.