Home form
Lee Bowyer touched on a topic many of us have highlighted as a problem today, and that is our miserable home form.
By my calculations under Bowyer at The Valley since he took over with fans in the ground the Addicks won 26 of their 46 league games that were played. That does not include play-off’s, or games this season with a small number of socially distanced fans allowed in.
That is a win record of 57%. Losing just 9 of those 46 games, just 3 total in League One.
Even last season after fans were stopped from coming we won just one game in our final 4 at home. 4 points from 16 (25%). Prior to that we had won 7 and collected 30 points from 57 (52%)
You can of course manipulate a stat anyway you want but some stand alone and there is absolutely no doubt that in a cavernous ghostly Valley, Bowyer’s team have really missed having Addicks’ inside to cheer them on.
The mark of a Bowyer team has been high press, high energy, blood and thunder. Fans rise to that. I wrote after he won his first game at home to Plymouth that “we played like a team of Lee Bowyer’s.”
This is not a post on what his team has become now, that has a little ways to run, and will come due another day, but show me a Charlton fan that has not enjoyed the journey under Bowyer when you could pay to watch them in the flesh from that first game with him charge nearly three years ago.
Now don’t get me wrong in my coming up to 50 years of going to The Valley there have been many, many times when you could hear a pin drop, peanut shells falling onto that gigantic terrace would echo, a seat crashing backwards vibrate in the Covered End amongst an eerie silence.
Yet for me when Lee Bowyer becomes an ex-Charlton manager one of my fondest memories will be the noise The Valley created when we drove and screamed them on in every situation. It may not always seem like it, but there have many great memories as a Charlton fan, but in those 47 games (I have to add the Donny play-off game ☺️) there was more than a fair share of hair on the back of your neck moments.
All fans can rightly claim that their teams have missed them, and I think that is even more applicable to those sides that play in the larger stadiums, but I’m going to stick my neck out and say a Bowyer team, trademarked by the bond that was mutually created, have missed them more than most.
It goes without saying that if this Bowyer team is going to write another successful chapter then that home form somehow has to be recreated. Starting Saturday.
Chicago Addick 
Totally agree CA but take a look at our Saturday form compared to other days. I worked out that we averaged close to 2 points a game on Saturdays yet under 1 point a game on other days over the past two seasons. It’s an odd statistic and I’m not quite sure what it demonstrates? Different preparation, lack of squad depth, too much tinkering with the team?
New that is a stat Steve. Very interesting.
Just updated what I looked at a few weeks ago. I make it Saturdays 61 points from 39 games, average 1.56 PPG, other days 27 points from 34 games, average 0.79 PPG. May not be 100% accurate but why do we gat twice as many points on a Saturday?
Why don’t they play some of the charlton fans songs you can download, on U tube as an example, loudly over the stadium tannoy system to create a pre match / in match fan atmosphere
It would also be great to hear by addick fans in match when streaming
Bob – agree. They did that in the first game against QPR and we won. Not sure they have done it since. It can’t not help can it?
I think there are two issues here, the first one is too much tinkering as Steve said. For some reason even when we have won and played really well, Bowyer has seemed to want to change at least two players, even though everyone who played the previous game is available! The second is when we play away we mostly play like an away team, counter attacking on the break and hitting long balls to the frontmen. When we play at home we seem to always want to play it out from the back, mostly sideways and backwards passing in our own half and getting nowhere and often cocking it up with poor passes, including Amos and also giving away free kicks, which put us under pressure in both cases and costs us stupid goals. The strange thing is when we do actually get forward, quite often all the midfielders rush forward like the Alamo and we often get caught out with quick breaks from the opponents. Yet we don’t often play like this away!
We are not a Liverpool or Man City, we quite frankly don’t have good enough players to keep trying to pass it about in our own half as shown from the poor goals conceded, even those clubs sometimes slip up! As Curbs said a few games ago and the others agreed, this isn’t like the Premier or Chamionship, in this division you need to get the ball up quickly to the front players not mess around trying to pass it around at the back. Which I and my friends having been saying for ages, as you can’t score any goals playing in your half, plus you put more pressure on yourselves of conceding, which we often do!
Forgot one other thing, most of out free kicks are wasted as Caskey, Pratley & co, prefer to do a quick pass sideways, which more often than not, goes nowhere, rather than put the ball into the box.
Lets see if any changes are made for the Gillingham game, as at presnt Bowyer has only instigated Purrington will retain his place!
Playing out from the back has caught clubs out at all levels e.g. Liverpool at the weekend. Our U23s on Tuesday against Bristol City conceded 2 goals whilst playing out from the back and one of our goals was from catching out BC whilst they tried to play out from the back.
The first team if we pair Stockley and Aneke, the goalkeeper, should utilise the long ball on a more frequent basis.
Sideway passing at freekicks cost us a goal at Swansea last season and we repeated the tactic in the following game and the opposition nearly scored. It is my pet hate.
Every corner and appropriate free kick my sons and I are shouting at the telly “put it in the box!!!”
Great blog btw.
Thank you for saying so Frank.