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" It was a great advert for League One and I can understand fully why Carlisle are doing so well in that league. Neil McDonald has done a super job, a very well organised disciplined outfit and they came and gave it a real good go tonight. I've got to say that Charlton should have won, they deserved to win with the chances they have made, but by no way were Carlisle ever out of it. There was a (Peter) Murphy shot in the second-half that scraped the top of the bar, and I think Kevin Gall was in a decent position down on this right-hand side and he drove the ball across Thomas Myhre's goal. All-in-all Carlisle have gone away losers but a great performance I think.
" I said for BBC London that I thought that if Charlton got a goal then they would go on to get three or four, and that clearly didn't happen. I thought some heads would drop, I thought perhaps fitness levels would go down in the Carlisle side because they were working ever so hard, and I couldn't see them sustaining that for 90 minutes but they did. It was a very disciplined performance in terms of how they defended their goal, when there is only one goal in it then anything can happen, and, to be honest, Charlton rode their luck at times a little bit.
" I've got to say that Chris Billy in that defensive midfield role, the (Claude) Makelele role that he has at Chelsea, I thought that he performed admirably tonight. I was a bit surprised also to see Chris Lumsdon go off, I thought he also performed very well in midfield. He had a couple of decent chances on the edge of the box, one was just deflected wide and I thought that might have caused Thomas Myhre some trouble if it hadn't got the deflection.
" I thought that throughout the side there was a really good work ethic, in the first-half certainly Simon Hackney caused some trouble down the left-hand side. I think that Carlisle have got some good individual players, I think that Neil McDonald has put together a decent side there that works hard for each other. You can see at the end there, that they've had a little circle, they've lost 1-0, but they had that little circle and a chat with each other, so they have obviously got great team spirit as well.
" By hook or by crook Charlton had to get a result tonight and they've done that and they move on, but they've got some tough fixtures coming up in the Premiership. They've got Aston Villa away on Saturday which last year they might have thought perhaps they could go up there and get a point or maybe three, this year you are probably looking at a point at best.
" Then after that he (Iain Dowie) has got Arsenal at home, so it doesn't get any easier, at the moment they have only got three points on the board and this, would you believe, was an absolute must win. There was lots of pressure on the team tonight and lots of pressure on Iain Dowie, and, like I say, it was by hook or by crook that they got this result and they just squeezed through.
" I got into the play-offs with Reading, so it was get the deadwood out and the club (Reading) moves forward, I was just coming to the end of my career at that point and my knee gave way. They had just laid the foundations for the future and they had a decent side, Alan Pardew left for West Ham and Steve Coppell came in and took up the reins and brought in some players that just finally put the last pieces of the jigsaw together. They've gone on from strength to strength and I'm well chuffed for Reading, they were on the verge of doing it while I was there, didn't quite make it and they have now.
" They are outperforming Charlton actually, I was here for 14 years and we were languishing in the Championship of old, and we finally got in the Premiership and we've stayed here, this is a real big year for Charlton though. Like I say, it was good to see Carlisle come down because I don't get to see League One football a lot, and if that is an advert for League One football then it was lovely to see them get the ball down and pass it. Lots of movement, little triangles, you kind of go back a few years and you just get the impression of long ball in that league with a big centre-forward and that just clearly wasn't the case. A good outfit, well disciplined and some nice football to boot.
" If Carlisle are sixth at the moment then I think that it will probably be a case of strength in depth, if you get a couple of injuries and suspensions then perhaps you might be in a bit of bother. I said to Jonathan Beck, my partner on BBC London tonight, that if you rewind two or three years then the difference in leagues would have been three or four. Now Carlisle are in the same league as Nottingham Forest, holding them to a draw away at the City Ground, and that is a great accomplishment for Carlisle, and they look like they are going from strength to strength. "