Match of the Shay Exclusive

Halifax ( Branch ) Manager Howard - zero percent interest in the cup now

Charlton came through a difficult cup match with Halifax ending up as flattering 4 - 0 victors. Halifax manager Howard quipped " the scoreline's gross and unfair. I felt we deserved to find the back of the net ". " We should have had a ( financial ? ) penalty. I had to make an early withdrawal of one of my players who was on a yellow card. We failed to cash in on our chances. Still we got good exposure from the tv coverage via ITV who have in the past been decscibed as a licence to quantative easing. My chairman will be pleased with the income  if not the outcome "........Howard continued in jocular vein.

Howard went on " I need to review the game and look at our APR ( actual passing rate ) I do like to see high APRs. On balance Charlton deserved the win but not by such a big margin. "  Howard went onto say that the ball seemed a little flat and that the ref hadn't made enough allowance for inflation.  

Finally, Howard observed that the main focus of attention is the league and he has a strong desire to compete with the big four.

ANEM would like to express its thanks to Howard for the interview and assure him that the cheque's in the post. No other blogs or media secured a post match interview with Howard and we only managed to do so having booked it with him 2 weeks ago. We fully understand the hour's delay to the appointed time and  appreciate that we are mere customers and should be grateful for his time and....... can you guess ?

Moving on...................a good decision by Sir Chris to field a fairly strong side as Halifax proved to be very good opposition. They went behind very much against the run of play. We deserved to win but not to the extent of 4-0. I agree with BWP being on the bench but fail to comprehend why he needed to come on and in particular when Wagstaff had just been scythed down in front our bench. That should have served as a reminder of the potential risk but clearly didn't.

At 1-0 midway into the second half the exquisitely named St Juste was causing us problems and there seemed no outlet. At the time I felt that Smith, Green and Pritchard should have come on. We left our subs a tad late for me. I'm afraid that our Jason didn't look the ticket at all today and his miscontrol when through on goal was..... disappointing shall we say !

I'm pleased that Taylor and Pritchard scored their first goals for the club. I wonder if we can have 11 different goalscorers by the end of the season ? Perhaps Ben can take a penalty.

The only spoiler for me today was some of our fans and their singing. As ever no need for the awful family song and worse I felt in the shape of " you're sh*t and you know you are ". That doesn't reflect well on our club at all. It's probably the usual spotty youths but it's irritating whilst showing a lack of respect and class, they need to grow up or go support someone else.

Carlisle await in the next round and at home too. Good news that although I may not be there due to another commitment which annoyingly is in the Metropolis but won't allow me to get to SE7 for the game.