A lot of negativity was around when we signed Hanlan and Charles-Cook, both youth players that were released by Charlton after not making into their first team squads. This was understandable but Lovell knew these players well from his time there. So then, how fantastic it was to see both link up for the first goal! Charles-Cook has been very well received by fans so lets hope this continues. How often do we pick up Charlton players that turn out to be pretty decent.
I think we have to accept that what we have is players that can do a certain job for the manager and that big name players are not going to fit that criteria. Having a solid team that understand his ethos is the key. How long this will continue once teams work out how to play against them remains to be seen. One key to success for me is the midfield positions. We started Bingham, Byrne, Parrett and Charles-Cook and I think we all expected Bingham or Byrne to be the deepest holding player and Parrett behind the front two. It turned out that Parrett was deepest with Charles-Cook at the tip of the diamond. When they changed around, Charles-Cook went deepest. Reilly was unavailable so if the players will continually change about, it will make playing against them and the diamond midfield very difficult.