Cod Almighty | Diary

Strike two and you are out

9 November 2015

Another early round of the FA Cup, another plucky small-fry opponent more or less efficiently put to the sword. But enough of Town's win over Scunthorpe in 2013 - let's talk about the St Albans City match from the weekend just gone. Boom, and indeed, boom.

It's not so much the victory or the nature of its being achieved that concerns your original/regular Diary now as much as the damage to two key strikers in Omar Bogle and Jon-Paul Pittman. Bogle has tweeted in an endearingly glass-half-full kind of way that the thigh injury that forced him off on Saturday is "not too serious" as he'll be "hopefully back in the next few weeks". As for JP, there's hardly such a thing as a not-too-serious injury; he's a smashing player and you suspect it's only because of his unlucky ongoing proneness to strains and pulls that he came to Town instead of staying in the Football League.

There is still Podge Amond, of course (I'm typing this on my tablet instead of my laptop so I'm not even going to try and find that accent; hence the use of his nickname), whose brace against the Saints took him to the astonishing tally of 14 goals so far this season. But who'll join him up front at Barrow tomorrow night?
Goalscoring prowess of the injured duo aside, Paul Hurst points out in the Telewag today that the absence of JP 'n' Bogez at the same time leaves the forward line a little diminished in the way of physical presence. A reasonable point, especially for a cold Tuesday night in Cumbria. So with spare wingers dropping out of his earholes, why not push Andy Monkhouse up front? "I'm not massively keen on doing that." Oh.

So don't bet against another loan signing. My money's on a man with a good goalscoring record at Conference level but who's now unlucky to find himself benched by the good form of his colleagues with his current fourth division side. He'll play six games for the Mariners without scoring, impressing most with his workrate, but still find himself subject to noisy abuse from a minority in the Twittersphere. Devon Diary will be a devastated diary when it turns out not to be Lenell John-Lewis just in time for a reprise of his Christmas advert, as the Marmite frontman popped in a pen for Newport in the FA Cup on the electronic television only this weekend.

The other options would be some of the several other wide players in the squad who, we are told, can do a job up front. I'm not sure how much Marcus Marshall could add in the way of physical presence, but he could easy have me in a fight any day, and his goal in the St Albans game showed poise and cool opportunism. Nathan Arnold, on his day, is unplayable at Conference level, and let's face it, we're all still a little moist from those stunners of his in last season's play-off at Eastleigh.

That leaves only the formalities of getting Sheffield United away when the balls come out of the, um, ball thing in tonight's second round draw, and me saying what a shame it was that young Josh Venney didn't get some manner of run-out against St Albans, what with Disley being suspended and everything. What a shame it was that young Josh Venney didn't get some manner of run-out against St Albans, what with Disley being suspended and everything. Seize ya!