Crawley Town 1 v Charlton Athletic 2

After the embarrassing defeat at Forest Green on Saturday, Phil Parkinson put out a strong starting eleven at Crawley Town this evening. Elliot, Basey, Llera, Fortune, Richardson, Bailey, Semedo, Racon, Shelvey and Burton is close to our best starting eleven, although no-one will convince me that Burton is good enough to play up front let alone on his own. I should add at this point that with Gray going, I can't see any of McLeod, Fleetwood or Dickson getting double figures this season. Shelvey or Bailey are more likely to finish top scorer if they aren't sold.

In any event, this team appears to have coped much better with Crawley Town than the side put out on Saturday. Jonjo Shelvey headed a first-half goal from a high Lloyd Sam cross. Deon Burton could have repeated the Shelvey goal from another Sam cross in the second-half but his header hit the bar. Crawley drew levels minutes later from the penalty spot after Rob Elliot brought someone down.

Mambo came on for Fortune and Spring replaced Semedo before Wagstaff got on for Richardson. Burton missed a gilt-edged chance from another Sam pull back before being replaced by Dickson as McLeod came on for Shelvey. McLeod missed a couple of decent chances before netting the winner and Wade Small got another eight minutes before the end.

I would like to think that the starting eleven for Barnet on Saturday will be close to the side that started this evening, so that we can begin to build some understanding ahead of the Wycombe game.