Charlton Athletic 0 Ipswich Town 0
That was pretty powderpuff wasn’t it.
The game had a bit of an ‘end of season nothing to play’ for feel to it. From us there was no acute cutting edge and we were unable to sustain any kind of passages of play involving more than three passes. Equally we weathered an unsure start where Ipswich fresh from a flea in the ear from Paul Cook started impressively.
Defensively we looked strong once we worked out their game plan of pushing their full backs far forward, but missing Washington, Maatsen and Chuks meant we lacked any kind of dangerous pressure in their final third.
I was surprised that Adkins didn’t make any offensive changes from the bench. We probably were the most likely to score in the final 20 minutes but a goalless draw was always the shortest odds.
Either Schwartz is untrusted or more likely his introduction would have to have changed the way we’d play, and it is clear the Dane would never have the work rate of Stockley, from what we’ve seen previously.
From what Adkins said we are still clearly a long way from how he wants us to play, with wingers a big part, but neither DJ or Millar made any constant impact on the game. And with Gilbey and JFC bit players today 0-0 was a fair result.
We are still in the mix, but questions to whether we are good enough for a top six will wait as we now go six games in 19 days.
Nigel Adkins: “We need a certain amount of points to get into the play-offs This is another point towards that. But as that goes, it now narrows the amount of defeats or points you can drop to achieve that points total.”
Photo credit: Kyle Andrews
Chicago Addick 
It seems that NA likes solid workmanlike players so that we can keep the game tight but I am concerned that players like Morgan who have flair are not even on the bench. LB tried to play Morgan in a deeper role than when he thrived and impressed me in the U18s and I admit it did not work, he is ideally suited to the No.10 role where he can operate on the edge of the box supplying short defence splitting weighted passes to the strikers and score the odd goal.
The bench today with 3 defenders and a defensive midfielder alongside Shinnie and the out of form Schwarz was not to my taste. Luckily we have gained ground on Portsmouth but Blackpool have pulled further ahead. I am worried that Aneke seems unable to play regularly in the 2 seasons that he has been with us he would have been a useful sub today.
Why I like Adkins’ complete reversal of Bowyers constant rotating of players and wholesale changes from the bench, we needed some spark from the subs today, but we had no one to bring on. Morgan and Smith could have provided that defence splitting pass, certainly more so than Watson.
Not bringing on Schwartz though I think told a story. Adkins does not play a style that suits Schwartz. Be interesting to see what his future holds.
Right on CA, as my friend texted me after the game, two average teams who will probably both miss out on the playoffs! Totally agree with you about the subs, Adkins just brought on Watson, a like for like for Pratley, who wasn’t going to make any real difference, which he didn’t!
As I think Mortimor said in a sort of way afterwards, that it looked like we weren’t going to score and he didn’t want to lose his first home game, so he didn’t make anymore subs, as we were containing Ipswich as we were.
IMO if you need to win, which Adkins previously implied so did Curbs and the previous panel, for the home game against Ipswich, you should use your subsitutes if required and if you don’t think they are good enough or not up to, then they shouldn’t be on the bench!!!
Shinnie &/or Morgan (who seems to have been completely dropped out of the team by Adkins for whatever reason as he was previously one of the better players), would have both added that extra imputus in midfield which we needed, as we really had no other decent forward on the bench!
Likewise bring Famewo on, chuck Inniss up front and just hurl crosses into the box. That would’ve been a real kick in the balls to Schwartz though.
Yep, a bit of a missed opportunity, with Pompey losing and Charlton looking strong it was worth a gamble, I’d have brought bringing Ronnie Schwartz on for the last ten minutes and risked conceding by losing the shape elsewhere. My issue with the 4-3-3 set up is that we are using Stockley as the target man but we really need someone to hoover up the knock-ons and hold up play currently he looks a tad isolated. Gilbey scored last week from a Stockley headed pass but things didn’t quite fall for us yesterday. Sometimes you just have to roll the dice…
Ideally we would have Conor Washington playing off Stockley, it’ll be interesting to see how we are set up when he returns.