Derby County 3 Charlton Athletic 0
“The story is still to be written. I want to be able, with the team and the players, to write the last chapter as we hope to.”
Jose Riga started with a very attack-minded line-up at Derby today. It was an interesting decision against one of the best English tactical minds not just in The Championship, but in the country. By half-time the cognitive theorist was a desperate second best.
After the win in the week Riga could afford to be brave but we were overrun in midfield and an already difficult game was made harder due to unenforced errors. With a Charlton goal as rare as a hen’s tooth the first goal was as a result of poor defending, but the second was as a result of poor everything.
The 2nd half was better and Riga had the side re-organized and ready to have a go after the break, but for all of the decent possession and half chances the art of scoring a goal has been as difficult for Riga as it was for Powell. Chris Martin, often linked with the Addicks over the years, got a third to worsen our goal difference for the second time in 7 days.
The trouble is that a football team cannot just defend to win. Riga has certainly set us up to keep more of the ball and be more efficient, his favourite English word, but, and this has been done to death, but our goalscoring problems were never addressed in the summer with the old lot, but catastrophically Duchâtelet, who has funds the old lot never had, weakened it further.
For all of those, ‘yeh, we’ve only won this year without Kemorgant,’ his goalscoring and assist statistics (before and since leaving The Valley) speak for themselves. Why offer money for mercenaries like Leon Best, Connor Wickham, Shaun Wright Phillips and Chris Eagles, all on Premiership wages, but not pay Kermorgant a little bit more?
Not forgetting also that Duchâtelet never allowed Powell to offer Cameron Stewart a new deal either.
This may or may not end up being an unnecessary relegation, but Duchâtelet’s arrogance still has me shaking my head.
Addicks Bloggers at Pride Park: Valley Talk; Chris Powell’s Flat Cap.
Couldnt agree more. Been saying this since the takeover. My belief is that we will be relegated because of Duchbags monumental arrogance.
I agree too. It was easier to support a board who were hard up than a multi millionaire with long pockets and short arms – it’s so frustrating. My biggest concern is why Powell didn’t sign when he had the chance to. Do you know the reason for that? It must’ve been something quite cataclysmic. I guess time will tell.
The reason given was “footballing reasons” Raith.
Only Powell and Duchâtelet knows what that means.
Are we seeing the “new manager effect”. Initially sides improve over the new man’s first 4 to 6 games. Then, unless better players are brought in, the side reverts to its pre-new manager form. I’m not surprised some of the defenders were guilty of errors yesterday. They’ve been having to work their socks off every game under intense pressure, knowing that our forwards will struggle to score. Eventually the pressure tells. I did expect us to lose, but I was hoping our goal difference wouldn’t be badly affected – as it was. All we could do with our limited options was to pack the midfield and hope the defence stood strong. Jose Riga didn’t see it that way and set us up with attack in mind. Sorry Jose, but with our player limitations, that’s naive and not good enough. Meanwhile Yann continues to rub salt in the owner’s self-inflicted wound. Does Duchatelet want us to be relegated? What are the man’s true intentions? His awful decisions to date can’t just be down to an arrogance streak.