Fleetwood Town 1 Charlton Athletic 2
Much, much better. A plan, an identity, a hunger, a bit of luck.
I liked the midfield but it needed Harry Arter to be influential and he was. A fitter, calming overlord that Ben Watson never is.
Gilbey and Lee were busy and in sync supporting the mobile and threatening Leko, Kirk and Davison.
The back four had a much more secure look to it, although it wasn’t perfect and twice, once early, and once late, MacGillivray had to save the day.
Equally the Addicks’ goalkeeper was possibly at fault for Fleetwood’s equalizer coming once again just after the half-time break. I sat there then thinking this is the test. Will Adkins’ men fold, cling-on, or keep on doing the right things, and generally they did the latter.
We created a few more very good chances before substitute Stockley dispatched beautifully a Leko cross to put us back ahead. Something that we haven’t been able to do all season.
We rode our luck a bit and defended a barrage of long throws via a combination of fortune and determination but very much deserved our win.
Losing wouldn’t have borne thinking about with Doncaster winning, but it is a start, albeit for me we now need to win and impress in the next four league games.
Sadly, just like after we beat Crewe, we now have a two week recess, which is a shame.
Fleetwood were not particularly good, but after 28 team changes in five games Adkins may have found the secret sauce.
One last word for the Addicks travelling support at Highbury. They sang the whole game, and were brilliant. This one had to be for them.
Mr Positivity: “We’re all involved, it’s an us and we’ve got to keep working hard to get ourselves out of the situation we’ve put ourselves in, from a points total point of view.”
Simon Grayson: “You’ve got players out there today that haven’t trained since Tuesday night, we’ve got six players out as well, we were really down to the bare bones today but we kept going to the end with the never-say-die attitude which has been shown again without getting the final outcome of late to equalise to give us a point.”
Photo Credit: Kyle Andrews
Chicago Addick 
Well what can I say. We won for the second time this season. People need to look at the table and see who we have beaten? I look at the table and could not see Fleetwood or Crewe in the top six in league one. In actual fact I could not see them in the middle of the table either? I look a bit further down and noticed that they are either side of us in the bottom six. This is going to be a long season and I just hope we survive and stay up. I hope I am wrong but we should be dominating these teams not hanging on. Time will tell but I still say we need to get rid of Adkins.
I agree. Great to get 3 points yesterday but l feel that simply papers over the cracks and delays the inevitable. It was an improved performance on recent displays but l remain unconvinced that NA knows his best team. All this constant chopping and changing is actually harming Charlton’s chances of quickly finding a consistent style of play and performance. So of these team selection defy logic. Although Kirk had a better game he had been off the radar completely for a good while. On the other hand, CBT was probably Charlton’s best performer in Kirk’s absence yet he is rewarded with a place on the bench? I am f******** bewildered by Adkins tinkering and as soon as Charlton’s form dips so the demands for Adkins head will increase.
Lets be realistic ‘One Swallow does not a summer make’.With the individual quality in the squad we have,we should be steamrollering teams like Fleetwood,not just scraping a 2-1 win.
Yes,the three points were welcome,but lets see what happens after the International break before we get too excited.
Adkins at the helm is still a problem for me.
Agree with all that has been said so far. Fleetwood are another team playing poorly and near the bottom plus they don’t have the resourses we have in players, with I believe six of their first team out injured! So whilst it’s a win we desperately needed, they were unlucky not to have got a draw as they bombarded us in the last 15 minutes, but at least we held firm this time, which has saved Adkins for another day.
As the others have said, Adkins is not the answer to get us out of this division, as apart from his continuing chopping and changing nearly half of the team for each game, his overall tactics are really poor and negative in almost every game and I believe from watching the Bolton game, he has lost quite a few players respect/support and that doesn’t come back after just one win, the same as with us, the supporters!
If he can suddenly produce the goods of driving us up the table with his entertaining football, as he likes to tell us, I am sure all of us would be extremely happy and would want him to continue and stay. But in all honesty, I can’t really see that happening with the way he has been setting up the team and the way they are playing, as I have seen no real serious indications of that, apart from a a couple of short really good spells here or there, which have probably been more like luck than chance.
No doubt his favourite player Watson will be back for the next game as usual, to control and slow the midfield down, with sideways and backwards passes, as then he is able to keep up with the pace. 🙂
Responding late to this – but I saw some signs that maybe the corner has been turned. For once we played a good team – the 4-4-2 formation suited the XI and Leko’s cross to Stockley was perfect. Too often this season we’ve lumped high balls into the box and Stockley hasn’t been able to much but flick them on – this time it was right into the danger zone for defences. He won’t score everytime but finally we gave him a decent chance and he took it.