Charlton Athletic 1 Coventry City 2
Hugely disappointing today. Another game we dominated but didn’t make it count and as night follows day we folded as Coventry changed it up, went more direct and found our weak spot down the wings. That’s 9 goals conceded in 3 games and how many from crosses?
We can’t kill teams off, only once have we won this season by more than one goal, and with our defence as holey as the Vatican, we are looking like we need to score many more than one to win.
I love it when Bowyer talks top two, talks his team up, but we are so far off the top two and unless we sort out the defence and possibly change the keeper our promotion journey will turn itself around and make it’s way to mid table.
By accounts there were some good performances today and from the commentary Taylor sounded as if he was everywhere. Reeves was good too, but less so Fosu and Grant. The back four is just a patched up gun shot would with some electric tape around it.
This has not been an auspicious start to Bowyer’s second set of nine games. We need the international break to rebuild mental strength, and need to do something with the back 5.
Krystian Bielik will return, but now poor Lewis Page is out for 6 weeks. Then Barnsley await.
Addicks at The Valley: Albury Addick; And Nothing Else Matters; Addicks Third Division Diary; Doctor Kish.
Bow: “Not one team has outplayed us, no-one is out fighting us and that was our problem last season. Before I took over teams were outfighting us and we were just a bit weak. Now we’re competing and we’re playing and all of a sudden we’ve started conceding these poor goals.“
Elsewhere: Barnsley easily won the day’s big game beating Peterborough away 4-0. Sunderland won at floundering Bradford 2-1 and Walsall won away at Bristol Rovers who also occupy the bottom four. Plymouth did win though beating Wimbledon, but the win of the day belonged to the Gills who beat previously unbeaten Portsmouth at Fratton Park 2-0.
Photo: @K_AndrewsPhotos
Chicago Addick 
Time to realise Your still a soft touch at home! – read Eamon Dunphy’s book…”Its only a Game”
Thanks for your insight Robin
In general the midfield and attack played well but Grant was below par.With Fosu back Grant was seen more on the right side with Fosu drifting left.I think Grant has proved better on the left side of Taylor so far this season. We were good at switching play from one side to the other in midfield but what was needed was more incisive passes forward through the middle and more use of the long ball forward as our front men have pace.Less said about the makeshift defence the better Why we did not recruit cover for the injury prone Page is a mystery? Pearce and Saar are left sided central defenders while Solly is a right back playing on the left and Dijksteel is a central midfielder playing right back. Injuries to a small squad have really cost us dear.
Overall Lee Bowyer is well in the credit (at least with me), he’s tactically astute, but one area of weakness is his use of substitutes, many of the subs he brings on are reactive replacing tired players rather than switching things around. We also are good at getting the ball and players into the box and that has lead to several penalties (already more than last season) but we need to find a killer touch, the player we are lacking is a number 10, someone like Kermogant who can hold the ball up, lay it off and create opportunities, maybe Billy Clarke will be the missing link when he returns? At the back we are paying for an inability to get decent cover in – I can’t criticise the management team – we know where the fault lies – but it’s an area we need to work on when the transfer window opens. We are missing our BFG.