A comfortable victory but a rather below-par performance. Whalley was again our most dangerous player and his delivery for the first goal was the stand-out moment of the day. We really miss Abu in midfield, both Godfrey and Nolan were not as good as usual though Nolan did improve when he played a bit deeper later on. The ref's decision not to send off their keeper was the worst decision I have seen all season - presumably he deemed him to have made a genuine attempt to play the ball but the problem with that was that Nolan had already gone around him and was about to score when the keeper felled him. Our second half display was poor as we allowed their midfield to dominate for the first twenty minutes or so and then missed some good chances when we finally got going. Gnahoua looked lively when he came on but Dodds did nothing to make a case for more game time. Payne seems to have lost a bit of his early season sharpness and Carlton Morris looked more dangerous and should start the next few games. Finally, I thought Beckles was excellent throughout and I loved the way he came out of defence and passed the ball well. Lets hope we get a home draw to Man Utd so we can try to erase the memory of that embarrassing night a few years ago.
It looks like Beckles is better at left back and Saddler is sat in the CD position. Hopefully Hurst trials this on Saturday.
