Watford 3 Charlton Athletic 4

A fantastic result yesterday that epitomised the team spirit under Chris Powell. It’s always nice to win on New Year’s Day as it sets an encouraging tone and hopefully a result of this eminence can see us go on a little run like we did after Cardiff.

We had just equalised to make it 3-3 with Twitter in confusion to who had scored when I was told “for the last time” to turn my phone off as we sat on the runway at Gatwick yesterday, so for this Addick I punched the air in delight around 7 hours after the rest of you.

Much has been made of Watford’s style of play under Gianfranco Zola, one of the best players ever to grace the Premier League. The Hornets’ easy to watch passing game is ruined by some systematic play-acting and eye-witnesses at Vicarage Road pointed to a far better footballing display from the Addicks, augmented by some real avidity.

Good too was to hear of the magnificent backing by the 1,600 Addicks at Vicarage Road, which has never been an atmospheric hotbed of football. At least the away fans get to avoid the allotments these days!

I was disappointed to not see any of the four festive games whilst I was back in Blighty, although two were played on travel days, but I plan to be at a few more games before the season is out.

Meanwhile today Emmanuel Frimpong returned to Arsenal on loan. He was with us during a difficult spell, and I wonder now if he will pitch up at Wolves? I am more disappointed to see Rob Hulse return to QPR. Hulse was from what I saw and heard was much more of a Charlton-type player and it was good to see him give and get back a nice reception to the travelling Addicks yesterday.

QPR haha are of course in the doo-doo and Harry Redknapp will be keen to assess his whole squad before making more decisions, so we may still yet get Hulse back, but one would assume that the striker feels he can’t be any worse than those that have been playing for Rangers these last couple of months.

As for Danny Seaborne, I would expect that Ceddy Evina’s latest revival will see him return to Southampton. It sounded as if Ceddy had another good game yesterday and I expect him to remain in and around the first team for the rest of the season even with Rhoys Wiggins back in light training.

Addick Bloggers at Vicarage Road: New York Addick; Hungry Ted; Doctor Kish; Ramblings of a Football Fan; Charlton Casualty.
Powell-ometer: His team selection has gone back to basis these past couple of games, led once again from the front by the skipper Johnnie Jackson.
Elsewhere: Cardiff are now 9 points ahead of 3rd after winning at St Andrews, Hull are 2nd after grabbing a point at Blackpool and Palace are back to 3rd after handing Wolves another defeat. Middlesbrough lost at Derby and Leicester put 6 past Huddersfield with new signing Chris Woods scoring twice in the first 24 minutes. Woods’ old club Millwall beat Bristol City 2-1, Dany N’Guessan was on the scoresheet and Blackburn won again, 3-0 at home to Forest. Brighton had a good win at Ipswich, Leeds beat Bolton 1-0 and Burnley stopped Wednesday’s winning run. Finally Peterborough moved out of the bottom 3 after beating now bottom Barnsley 2-1.