April Fool

I watched some of the U21 game last night against Brighton on their Player service. Some of the passing and movement from the young Addicks was exceptional and they were very unfortunate not to win. Craig Mackail Smith, the most experienced player on the pitch, scored a peach of a 94th minute equaliser.

Anyway the reason this is relevant today is that in goal for the Addicks was a 15-year old called Jordan Beeney, who despite being 6 years younger than the age group, was calm and confident in the bits I saw, but I did wonder why Dillon Phillips wasn’t playing and this morning we found out why.

“Charlton keeper Yohann Thuram-Ulien has refused to travel for tonight’s crunch Championship match at Leeds United.” (more)

Phillips wasn’t at Brighton last night because he is on the coach to Leeds, unlike Thuram-Ulien who I suspect was promised the No.1 jersey and got Le Hump because two managers don’t fancy him. To make matters worse, the Addicks are unable to recall Nick Pope from York City because Thuram-Ulien’s absence is not injury related.

Allegedly Duchatelet pushed Chris Powell to play the Frenchman, but after a dicey performance at Middlesborugh, he then flapped his way through the Wigan game, and finally with little to do in the QPR victory, he presented a goal opportunity on a plate after ballsing up a tricky but hardly impossible back pass. Steve Brown he is not!

Credit to Riga for continuing with Powell’s view that he is not good enough, and certainly not as good as either Duchatelet, Dudu Dahan and Thuram himself think.

It would be interesting to know what Jose thinks of the other network signings he has to work with. Only AA has made any impression, but despite his popularity the 23-year old appears to have the fitness levels of a 43-year old.

Oh, and sadly this doesn’t appear to be an April Fool.