A week off

The Addicks’ first team, which has been pretty settled with ten players having started 13 or more of our league games thus far, have been given the week off by Karl Robinson.

Tonight we host Fulham’s academy side and Robinson intends to match them with mostly our academy players. Aaron Barnes, Afernee Djiksteel and Joe Cummings will all start and Lewis Page, Mark Marshall and Ben Reeves all hope to get minutes under their belts. Johnnie Jackson, Joe Aribo, Karlan Ahearne-Grant, Joe Dodoo and Dillon Phillips make up the XI.

For most of us, tonight will pass without a whimper but it is another chance for the youngsters to show what they can do with George Lapslie, Reeco Hackett Fairchild and Taylor Maloney also expected to feature.

Of more interest is to what team Robinson fields at home to Truro City on Sunday, the game being put back 24 hours due match updates being shown on some sort of BBC Live Score programme on Sunday.

Whilst I would expect players such as Holmes, Magennis, Amos and Solly to be rested, I would really like to see Robinson put out a strong team able to beat the National League South side, who arrive in SE7 for one of the biggest games in their 128-year history, although Truro did win the FA Vase in 2007, the first Vase final at the new Wembley.

The crowd that day was 27,754, probably 20,000 more than will be at The Valley on Sunday. One would expect the switch to Sunday will also dent Truro’s following from Cornwall.

The juggling act for Robinson is preserving fitness, but also keeping the hunger and good run going and avoiding being embarrassed and our name being plastered all over the back pages on Monday morning. With the Shrewsbury away game the following Saturday almost certainly being postponed due to the international games I’m hoping Robinson is a little more carefree with his selections. Of course depending on tonight he could start Reeves, Marshall and Page.