TOWN started to repair the damage of their humiliation at Macclesfield as they progressed into the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy Area semi-finals after beating League Two side Wycombe on Tuesday.

Saturday’s defeat – one of the club’s worst-ever FA Cup performances – was hard to digest for most Town fans, but the players and staff refunding travelling supporters has helped in drawing a line under the issue, and was the right thing to do.

The club has missed out on the potential of big financial rewards. Thankfully, like the previous season, we enjoyed a good League Cup run.

Tuesday gave boss Mark Cooper the chance to cast his eye over players that have been on the fringes of the first team set-up.

Midfielder Ryan Harley made only his ninth appearance and put in an impressive shift alongside Mass Luongo in central midfield.

Harley made his name at Exeter City where he became a vital player in Paul Tisdale’s side that gained promotion in 2009.

Since leaving the Grecians in 2011 he’s not settled at a club, but hopefully his injury problems are behind him and he can provide competition for Luongo and Yasser Kasim in that important area.

Egyptian international striker Mohammed El-Gabbas also made a big impression with a short cameo.

His persistence and work rate earned Town the free kick that resulted in Cooper’s side moving into the next round.

One player we still haven’t seen this season is midfielder Alan Navarro.

After being linked with a move to Chesterfield it looked like he would move on but the deal fell through and he stuck around.

Since the summer injuries have once again caught up with him, and it’s looking increasingly likely we won’t see him again.

I’ve mentioned that the club needs to sign some new faces if we are to compete in the promotion race, and this week we found out why those signings haven’t been made.

In 2012 the Football League implemented the Salary Cost and Management Protocol (SCMP) to help control the amount of money clubs spent on wages. It was this system that Town fell foul of last season, which resulted in the club entering a transfer embargo.

This season the club can spend 60 per cent of its turnover on wages, and at this stage they are very close to that amount, which has resulted in not being able to bring in new players.

It’s a very frustrating situation not only for Cooper, but for chairman Jed McCrory.

One of the new owners’ first jobs was to decrease the club’s ridiculous wage bill and they have offloaded some of the big earners.

Obviously the job isn’t finished.

Town go to Colchester United on Saturday and our record against Joe Dunne’s side isn’t great, with just two wins in their last six visits.

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