www.altyfans.co.uk

...so it appears we would have had Newport (A), as our ball number was pre-determined.

Would we have liked that?

Firstly, to the referee last night who I thought was excellent - even if begrudgingly given that he awarded a penalty against us. Set his stall out early in terms of what he'd let go, and stayed consistent. By the time the cards started coming out there was no doubt they passed the threshold - even Alex Newby's for kicking the ball away which we know they're clamping down on this season.

We all got to watch a good game of football and the ref played a part in that.

Secondly, to Aldershot's travelling number - I thought 117 for a long and fairly miserable Tuesday evening was a fantastic effort, so fair play to them.

I must be going soft.

Who do we want then?

For me, it's got to be Macc but at home. Get them over to our place, pack the place out and get them seen off. I'd rather not give them home advantage for this one.

Not a happy hunting ground for us - and yes, I'd happily take a point now.

The manager loves a bit of rotation - so I'm going out on a limb to suggest Burroughs be given a start. Lewis Baines absolutely MUST come back in.

                           Ross
          Burroughs  Roscoe  Baines
Donawa                                     E.Jones
                  Marriott  Osborne
         Amaluzor            Conn-Clarke
                          Angus

At home, and in more winnable fixtures (and when James Jones returns) I'd be keen to see us drop a defender and bring Matty Kosylo back in from the start.

Starting to look a bit threadbare already in terms of squad depth, I didn't think I'd be saying that this early into the season yet again.

...do we revert back to the 3421 system that caused a strong Stockport side issues in pre season?

On that afternoon it was:

                          Byrne
             Cooper  Roscoe  Baines
Donawa                                     E.Jones
                  J.Jones  Osborne
           Kosylo            Conn-Clarke
                         Linney

With our currently available personnel we could look at something along the lines of the following:

                          Ross
              Banks  Roscoe  Baines
Donawa                                     E.Jones
                  Marriott  Osborne
         Amaluzor            Conn-Clarke
                         Angus

If James Jones's injury is short-term, he should come in for Roscoe. He absolutely shouldn't play right of a three where he gets skinned all the time.

Against Stockport we seemed to find some really nice passing lines between the deeper midfielders and the more advanced ones, with Chris Conn-Clarke in particular benefitting from being able to drift between centre and left at his leisure.

Dior's job will become much better if we can get two willing wing backs bombing on to the byline, and I think Eddy and Justin can get up and support the advanced midfielders much more frequently than is currently the case.

First casualty of the season already.

I can't imagine Unsworth will be too far behind him at this rate.

So it seems the three at the back is here to stay... but what I quite liked was the tweak at the top of the field.

Unless others interpreted it differently to me, it seemed to be more of a 3421 'Christmas Tree' - with a sole focal point in attack (Linney) and two forwards to support him.

In that first half it certainly seemed to do the trick having the extra midfielder instead of two out-and-out forwards like we did at the end of last season.

There seemed to be some words between Jones, Kosylo and Conn-Clarke in the first half, but I think the challenge was that the latter two were taking up the same positions.

Something along the following lines certainly has a nice balance to it:

                         [GOALKEEPER]

              Ja.Jones    Roscoe    Baines

Donawa                                             E.Jones

                    Marriott      Jo.Jones

          Amaluzor                  Conn-Clarke

                              Linney

If we could get the goalkeeper situation sorted, I'd feel fairly confident about things going into the Dagenham game.