FT: Posh 0 - 0 Charlton I think Fergie took most Posh fans by surprise with the line-up tonight: Alnwick, Luto, Brisley, Santos, Smith, Ajose, McCann, Ferdinand, McEvoy, Barnett, Vassell. Subs: Day, Edwards, Marshall, H.Anderson, Conlon, Richens, Mendez-Laing, Duggan. I attended London Road this evening fully expecting to see a Posh team containing the players that would be the most likely start against Rochdale in the first League fixture. I was wrong - Apart from Ben Alnwick and Michael Smith it was mostly back-up, transfer listed players and former youth squad. Posh were a match for Charlton in the first half, being neat and tidy when in possession in their own half, going forward though was a different matter, balls into the Charlton half being hopelessly over-hit or mis-directed. The strips worn by both teams were identical in design, Posh in blue and Charlton in red, clearly a number of Posh players appear to be chromatically challenged. If Fergie wanted Alnwick to have a good work out then his game plan succeeded admirably, making a number of good saves. His positioning, handling and distribution were good - much better than Bobby Olejnik. Ricardo Santos (MoM), Michael Smith and Kyle Vassell all did their chances no harm with good performances. Young Ollie Luto, starting his first senior game at Left Back looked decent going forward, though he had a tough time defensively against the lively and nippy Charlton players. He is only young though and looks a decent prospect Kane Ferdinand was good for the first 10 minutes or so but then became erratic, with wayward passing, his inconsistency showing why he has always been a fringe player. The main concern was Kyle Vassell, he went off with what looked like a hamstring injury near the end, hopefully it is not too serious. A decent performance from Posh, especially in the second half, against strong opposition, though Charlton were guilty of missing two simple opportunities to score from less than 6 yards out. We now have 8 players from the youth set up in our first team squad and, apart from Joe Newell, all look capable of playing in League 1, Santos and Ntlhe especially have shown much improvement.
