Cod Almighty | Diary

If it isn't hurting, it isn't working

17 October 2017

Middle-Aged Diary knows what you are thinking.

As fans filed out from last Saturday's 0-0 draw, just one question was on everyone's lips: when, oh when, is Russell Slade going to bring into the squad a third right-back?

The wait, the sleepless nights, are over. If Ben Davies loses form and Zak Mills gets crocked, Reece Hall-Johnson is ready to fill the breach. Gone are the days when Paul Hurst fills the squad with York City cast-offs. Nowadays we get them from Norwich.

We apparently need Hall-Johnson – and, to be fair, he can cover a few positions in defence – because of knocks to Davies and Karleigh Osborne. As he has been signed until the end of the season, expect to read any day now that those two are following Chris Clements and now Akwasi Asante out on a three-month loan to a Conference side; that's the only way to return to fitness nowadays.

When I lived in London, I once made the mistake of going to Oxford Street the week before Christmas. You can't shop there; you just have to join the throng, grab anything the press of people brings within reach, then figure out later who on Earth it will be an appropriate present for. Russell Slade appears to be building our squad on the same principle. I hope his auntie likes utility midfielders.

None of this is to say a word against Hall-Johnson, who may well be an excellent footballer and a model professional. If he can confirm he was named after our diminutive 1990s goalie, he has me on his side for a start. I look forward to seeing what he can do, just as I have quite enjoyed watching Davies and Mills.

Town fans in the south-west are in for a treat (other descriptions of the experience of watching the current Town side are available) over the next month, with a trip to Plymouth in the first round of the FA Cup added to our dates at Exeter and, tonight, Cheltenham. Cheltenham is a faraway place of which we know a little too much and don't like what we do know.

Memo to Russ: win tonight and a lot of questions about our strategy and tactics will abate for a week or two.