Back To League Action

With no Cup action this weekend our attention turns to the monotony of league football with a trip to bottom club Burton Albion.

Former boss, JFH, was allegedly a target for Tommy at some stage but thankfully that didn’t come to pass or at least it hasn’t yet. You never know with our bizarre owner.

The Brewers are now managed by Dino Maamria. He is someone I know little of and had to turn to Wikipedia to provide some info.

As the old saying goes, as a player he had more clubs than Tony Jacklin and his managerial career appears to be heading in the same direction. Dino has been sacked from his previous two clubs.

As I understand it he remains in temporary charge despite having been in situ for a couple of months now. Unlike our own recent protracted managerial audition Maamria can’t claim the right to the job unlike Jacko.

To add to Burton’s woes there is an injury list that makes ours look reasonably rosie!

Despite all the recent cup action and excitement, tomorrow ought to see us victorious at the Pirelli Stadium. We just need to tread carefully, maintain good balance, steer away from danger and if we can handle the pressure, then all ought to be ok.

Apologies for the poor puns, regular readers will appreciate it’s not been a good year for that!

Garner has a job in balancing the needs for fielding another strongish team against those who’ve played a lot and may need a bit of a rest because they feel a bit "tyred".

However, the recent positive results if not performances ought to put a spring in the step of the players. One would hope that they’d be champing at the bit to get out there again.

I’d like to see JFC get an opportunity to play some part and Payne really should be starting.

As ever, we’ll keep our fingers crossed that we don’t collect any more injuries especially to our two remaining strikers.

A tougher trip away to Port Vale awaits on the following Saturday and a win tomorrow allied to at least a point at Vale Park would represent a good return.

Off the pitch our illustrious owner remains tight lipped and in terms of social media, very distant. It must be very frustrating for him as he appears to need the limelight and attention in very much the same way as Matt Hancock.

Let’s hope it’s because he’s negotiating to sell up, Tommy I mean not the odious MP.

Garner has to ignore all that and keep the team focused on maintaining some sort of challenge in the remote hope we might get a play-off spot and that, in January, Tommy or a new owner might actually invest in the team.

Yours truly is off to the Emirates Stadium tomorrow for only the second time. I’ll be watching England take on Samoa in the rugby league World Cup semi.

Hopefully, it’ll be more rewarding than my previous visit when The Addicks took on “ Thierry Henry’s Arsenal “ where we lost, had Osei Sankofa sent off (his appeal against that poor decision was deemed to be frivolous and he received a further one match ban) and we eventually got relegated.

Let’s hope we can prevail at The Pirelli!

Come On You Reds!