Make mine a Brandy!

Brandy: Lightening quick

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With Manchester Utd having an abundance of forwards at their disposal Sir Alex Ferguson was kind enough to loan one of them to The Gills for three months.

Ok, we were unsuccessful with our attempts to lure Rooney, Owen or even Berbatov to Priestfield but we were more than pleased to welcome their 20-year-old pacy team-mate Febian Brandy to the club.

After our recent poor league form, which has seen us take only one point from a possible 12, it was a welcome relief to be involved in FA Cup action against Southend. It was the second time in eight days that we've faced each other and it was a chance for a bit of revenge after we narrowly lost in injury time the week before.

Great debut

It was obvious straight from the kick-off that Gills were in determined mood but it took a penalty miss from the normally reliable Simeon Jackson to really get the team firing all cylinders. The miss was from the result of a terrific surging run from the lightening quick Brandy who was then hacked down in the area.

We didn't have to wait long for Gills to break the deadlock as shortly after we went ahead through Curtis Weston thanks to a great flick from the debutant Brandy.

Just minutes later and it was 2-0 and the impressive Brandy scored a well deserved goal after a great cross from Chris Palmer. Brandy was replaced shortly after the hour mark after yet another kick on the ankle from a Southend player who just couldn't handle him! I think it's safe to say they were pleased to see the back of him!

A Mark Bentley header capped another good individual performance after another good delivery from Palmer, wrapping the game up and putting us into the hat for the second round draw.

We still had time to witness a shocking open goal miss from Dougie Freedman. He managed to somehow put the ball wide of the post when it was harder to miss! Comedy Genius!

Golden chance

The draw for the second round was very kind to us as we were given a home tie against Fulham reject Paul Peschisolido's Burton Albion. Even though the league two new boys have made a good start to the season we couldn't have been given a better chance to progress to the third round.

Obviously it's vital for the club to get through to the third round as it could be another good pay day for us. Last season's cup run at the time seemed a distraction but the game against Aston Villa made the players believe in themselves more and actually changed our season around. Even though Ashley Young cheated us out of a deserved replay at Villa Park!

Back to the bread and butter of the league on Saturday and a visit of Oldham and our old friend Sean Gregan to Priestfield.

We need to get our league form back on track and the players should be full of confidence going into the game.

Unfortunately Gills will be missing the suspended Fuller and Jackson who's on International duty. However, we now have a new star striker in the making and hopefully we'll be raising our glasses to him again on many more occasions!

Up The Gills!