Charlton Athletic 2 Gillingham 3
Another three conceded at home. Another defeat. Another miserable day.
The pitch was only passed fit less than an hour before kick-off with loud mouth Evans wanting the game off, and Charlton wanting the game played…. of course!
That’s quite a crushing defeat knocking any renewed confidence after last week and proving again that this is not a promotion winning team. There are a good 7-8 sides consistently better than us. In fact we have not dominated a team above us in any league meeting this season and the games keep getting ticked off.
Our home form sucks. 4 wins all season, 18 conceded in the last seven home games, we’ve gone behind in the previous six games at The Valley. The defending continues to be atrocious.
Bowyer when with an unchanged team…. when did that last happen? We lost JFC early though which was a loss, and DJ looked nervous and hesitant whenever he got the ball.
Less than half a minute on the clock and Amos was again picking the ball out of the net in front of a ghostly Covered End. Once more we have to drag ourselves back into a game. When we have the ball in the opponents half we look like we will create chances, not necessary score as our real pressure moments are very sporadic. We also give the ball away far too much and are experts at turning an offensive attack back into our own half.
The defence is one of the worst I have seen. This is a throwback to the Andy Nelson era and we seriously have to score five to be sure of a win.
I have to say though that Stockley and Millar never stopped chasing. If Millar had a left foot he wouldn’t be on loan in League One, but both loanees were a credit, as was once again Aneke, who I felt was very unlucky to be sent off.
Even with 10 men we had most of the ball, but you knew it was coming. Olly Lee hit the bar, when it looked easier to score and then Dempsey fired in whilst the red shirts around him just gawped.
These are desperate times, and I find it hard to be upbeat about it suddenly changing.
💬: “I’m happy with where we are, how we are playing. I’d be worried if we were losing and not playing well or created chances.” – Bow
🖊: Albury Addick; Addicks Third Division Diary.
1️⃣: Sunderland came back to life as Charlie Wyke scored all four in a 4-1 win over Donny. MK Dons had another good away win, this time at Hull. Plymouth beat Fleetwood 1-0. Burton had a big win at manager-less Northampton.
📸: Paul Edwards
Chicago Addick 
I think we are all getting carried away. You end the blog with “These are desperate times….” but they aren’t.
Desperate times was earlier this year BS (before Sandgaard) and the last 5 or 6 seasons when we didn’t know if the club was going to survive. Desperate times is when you don’t have a team and the start of the season is a few days away. Desperate times is when you have a stupid old codger running the club which he then hands over to a clueless lawyer.
I agree this team owes more to the Andy Nelson days but I am sadly old enough to remember a couple more decades prior to that. The first season I watched the Red Red Robins they posted 4,5 ,6 and of course famously 7 sometimes several times and still didn’t always win.
At the moment I will take the set up we have. I feel satisfied that we are in good hands.I would hate to see Lee go because of a few lousy results after what he has been through and the way he kept faith with all of us.I have faith that TS will make sure there are sunnier horizons.
Before anyone starts – of course I want this team to win. After 60 years I am as hungry as anyone to see a successful CAFC team perhaps more so as I may have a more limited time to enjoy it. 🙂
I fully endorse everything Keith says. I too have been supporting the Addicks for 60 plus years and despite all the frustrations this season continues to bring I believe Lee Bowyer deserves to be given every chance to move us forward. Every supporter wants us to achieve promotion this season but until we can start a season with all the shackles removed (salary cap, transfer embargo poor ownership etc) then we will struggle just like any other team would. Keep the faith, Thomas and Lee will get us there.
Yesterday Bowyer alluded to getting the sack if he fails to get us in the play-offs. Bye !
Some rather harsh and sad comments on this Blog. I am more than satisfied with being 7th in the league with this current team. I am eager to have Innis and Famewo back in the defence so we can make a push for the top positions. Bowyer is the right man for me; if we were bottom and heading for League Two then I would think differently. COYR.
David you may support Bowyer, you may be happy with another season in this shit league, you may believe Innis and Famewo will be our saviours. You may be heading for disappointment.
Innis is extremely injury prone. Look at his Wikipedia profile, it’s horrendous. Famewo is likely to break down again. His last comeback lasted one game.
But Bowyer didn’t want a new centre-back in the transfer window !! he will rely on an ageing (in football terms) Pearce and a mistake prone Oshilaja.
As much as I want Bowyer gone, I suspect TS will keep him in place until the season end. The next rebuild is going to be massive.
We are in a bad run of form but no team is currently running away with this league. If anyone can string together 5-7 results, they will be in with a shout. Can we? I’m not sure. But we do have some good signs up front. If the defence can steady up we might turn this around but the next 10 games through to then end of March will tell. I’d stick with Lee, he is young, is still new to being a manger and hopefully is learning with every game.
I agree with the positive replies here, we’re not in desperate times, just the opposite in fact if you remember how we’ve been fretting about the very existence of our club for the past few years. If we don’t go up this season so be it, though we know the knee-jerk reaction element of the support won’t be happy.
Saturday was a bit of a horror show and I don’t think we’ll have a chance until Inniss and Famewo are back. LB isn’t stupid, I’m sure he’ll have wanted to bring another CB or two in during the window but maybe there were things going on behind the scenes that prevented it, or maybe it really was just that no-one decent was available. What’s he supposed to do in that situation, come out and slag off the players that he’ll have to rely on or be positive and try to give them a bit of confidence?
One person I hope not to see back at the Valley is Rob Lee. I put him in the Paul Walsh category of someone who moved on and retains no affection for the club, unlike Jonny Robinson, Morts, etc who have been a joy to watch on Valley Pass. I know his son was playing for the opposition but his remark “I look out for their (us) results sometimes” summed him up for me and I found his non-CAFC-biased punditry really annoying!
I have tried twice to leave a reply on here for these fans with rose tinted glasses, but it hasn’t been printed! Yet you put another post up from Shetland Addick who is having a go at Rob Lee who is just speaking the truth, he wasn’t biased at all, plus is S.A. joking, the horror show has been going on for months, not just last Saturday! The person who is now speaking absolute rubbish is Bowyer himself, who uses so many excuses each time after the games, it’s getting beyond a joke and is quite frankly embarrassing!!!!
Mike. I haven’t seen any previous replies from you. I post every comment. Everyone is entitled to their opinion on here.
Mike, the Rob Lee comment about non-CAFC-bias was a little tongue in cheek but then I think we have Curbs & Minto to provide the serious analysis while ex-players can just wax lyrical about their time here. You didn’t mention my comment about buying CB’s – I’m sure LB would have done so if possible and apart from that most people thought we’d bought well. Remember it takes time to build a decent team and do you really think 20 odd games is enough? Let’s stay calm and stop piling on the pressure of unrealistic expectations on manager and players – every other club is trying to do the same thing we are and we need to take a long-term view, not a game-to-game “we didn’t win, sack him!” attitude.
I agree totally with Keith – these are not our worst times. And I too am confident about the long term future – we just have to be patient. BUT if you could have seen or heard me on Saturday you would know I don’t feel like that all the time!! Yes, I am sick of us making other teams look really good when they are not – and letting them score freak, wonder goals. How many more? And yes, I hate this division too and hope not to be back there for a very long time once we escape. But we will – just as we will be escaping the clutches of Covid. And would I want to be at the Valley at the moment – probably not – I laughed when they talked about how the fans are missed – the atmosphere with these performances would be toxic.
The first signing we have to make in the summer is a defensive coach. You can look at our recent matches and see a couple of patterns – the first is that we have conceded too many goals by attacking midfielders who are getting into goal scoring positions and are either being unmarked or are running into space. No one picks the runs up, no one closes down or just gets in the way. Secondly, going forward we create a lot of pressure and enjoy a lot of possession and get shots in on target but we need to be more clinical in front of goal.
Automatic promotion is probably beyond us and only remains an option because other teams are as inconsistent as we are. Right now a play-off place is the probable choice but even that’s becomong more unlikely. We can’t keep on getting mugged by teams who demonstrate less ability but more nous.
Well said Shadow Play you beat me to the punch as I think as you do that the coaching of the defence is not good enough. This is not a new situation, last season, we were caught out time and time again by crosses from the right which were poorly defended at or near the left hand post especially late in games.
I’m as hacked off as the next Addick at our home form this year, believe me. But look where we are compared to where we probably would have been if we were still in the control of the spivs… In administration, minimum 12 points deduction, in the relegation places instead of 2 places off of the play-off spot.
Remember LB has had a rough 2 seasons, in the Championship we were the paupers, with the least amount of money of all the other 23 clubs, and we were only one point away from a second season at that level.
The October arrival of St. Sandgaard came at the end of the brief summer transfer window and LB grabbed whatever he could to get a team together for the season. The effects of the ridiculous wage cap hung over us into the January window, and in all his tenure Bow has not had one opportunity to put a team together without financial and other constraints.
Having said that there are clearly problems with the squad, either on the tactical side, square pegs having to play in round holes due to injuries, or confidence issues. More likely a mix of all three. Bow seems to have motivational problems with the squad – we start off at half speed while wilier opponents come at us from the kick off (as in last Saturday) and we regularly give away a two goal start at an eerily quiet Valley. Similarly at the other end of the game we run out of puff and concentration in the last 10 minutes and either fail to turn 1 point into 3 or give 3 points away instead of earning 1. Our home record this season is going to end up in the bottom 10 of the 60 years I’ve been watching the club… that (to quote LB) simply ain’t good enough!
Unless an unforeseen change in fortune suddenly hits the squad mid-table mediocrity beckons in May. However, being honest, given where we were in August wouldn’t most of us have willingly taken that?
In the summer (hopefully a normal length break for once giving everyone – and in particular Bow and Jacko a well-deserved break as they must be close to burn-out) we need to have a squad sort-out and re-build at the level that St. Chris had before his memorable championship winning season.
We have an owner with the interest and funds to do that. We have a revised salary cap which gives the club a bit more cash to splash, and hopefully next season we’ll have a nearly full Valley for every home game – and I’m with Bow on this one and bugger the statisticians…. you can’t quantify what a lift 20,000 home fans can give to a team, and how that mostly puts the bejeebers up the opposition. Not many 1st division players have played in front of so many fans and we have to use the red army as the 12th. man on the pitch next season. We need to make The Valley a fortress, which mediocre teams dread to come and others feel really uncomfortable.