It’s bloody typical, isn’t it? In the week we let Lukas Franzen-Jones and Kaan Bennett fly the nest, we lose two forwards in the same game.

A month or so ago we were absolutely sweating forwards. In addition to the above, we had Charlie Walker, Martel Taylor-Crossdale and Danny Bassett inching his way back from the ban. Now, to go all Harry Redknapp for a moment, we’re down to the bare bones.

Charlie Walker didn’t get far through this one. Before the half hour was up, he was hobbling around, holding his groin like a Michael Jackson tribute act. Danny Bassett joined the crocked list midway through the second half, although it was during the taking of a first-half penalty that he seemed to injure himself. By the end we had poor little Arezki Hamouchene playing up top, trying to win long balls against St Albans’ industrial-sized centre-backs. He had more chance of winning of the FIFA Peace Prize.

We were losing players so quickly I had to have a quick glance over at the St Albans bench to check they hadn’t appointed a new manager:

(This is as topical as the comedy gets round here. We’ll be back to the Bob Carolgees gags next week.)

To my eyes (and I recently got talked into taking a new pair of £600 “AI-enhanced” lenses at Vision Express, so my eyesight is beyond dispute), the aforementioned first-half penalty was a bit soft. The TV pundits with the funny trainers would say Ryan Bernal was “entitled to go down there”, but I wasn’t wholly convinced it was in the box. My post-match pub pals disagreed and so, crucially, did the linesman, handing the Rooks the penalty that Danny Bassett converted for his first goal of the season.

After that went in, it was largely a backs-to-the-wall job. We did have a few second half chances. Devonte West looked the most likely to create something, cutting in from the left and blasting past defenders for fun, but his shooting was largely wayward. One decent chance rebounded off the arse of a St Albans defender, Bobby Unwin swooshed another opportunity high and wide.

But it was largely St Albans applying the pressure. They must have had 20 corners in the second half, with our big lads at the back and Louis Rogers dealing brilliantly with the aerial bombardment. It had late equaliser written all over it, especially when the referee added on a fair dollop of injury time, but we held out for our third successive 1-0 home victory.

The three points were very welcome, because with a Billericay double-header, Folkestone and Aveley coming up, the next few weeks are going to be tough. Let’s hope enough change slipped down the back of the sofas in the Rook Inn yesterday for us to afford a replacement striker or two.

Lewes: Rogers, Bernal, Burchell, Hamstead, Kpakpe, Christian-Law, Allen, Bassett (Hamouchene), West, Unwin, Walker (Muirhead)

Unused subs: Watson, Ovenden

Supporters Club man of the match: Jack Burchell got his bonce to a lot of dangerous balls in the second half, and took a couple of elbows for his troubles, too. Honourable mentions for Hamstead and Rogers (which sounds like a solicitors’ firm), too.