Burton Albion 2 Charlton Athletic 0
Five defeats in six. Nine without a win in the league, eleven in all competitions. Last win was the very fortunate one over Cheltenham at The Valley. Before that it was away at Wigan in October.
As a reminder we are in League One playing in front of crowds of 3,000.
Any new player bounce lasted approximately 22 hours. Ladapo and Coventry started but irrationally Appleton starts with the same defence, and unsurprisingly the same things happen.
We actually played all right in the first half without really threatening the Burton goal. I think the phrase is we didn’t get the football forward enough but with Burton happy to sit deep we controlled the game, except when they scored.
The half-time team talk must have been stimulating because they come out and are 2-0 down within two minutes due to more comical defending where Watson (T) actually provides a very nice assist.
Absolute rubbish thereafter all the while watched by a bloke on the touchline as animated as a corpse with his hands in his pockets.
Appleton took until the 75th minute to change it. Kanu did hit the bar in the dying minutes and then to put a line under the game May tracks back 40 yards and completely takes out one of their players whilst the rest of his team mates watch. He was booked.
Throughout the 2nd half the 600 Addicks’ fans sung anti-Appleton songs and without any doubt he has lost the fanbase, one he hasn’t even attempted to connect with.
Northampton Tuesday. It could turn nasty.
MoM: Bakinson was busy.
Appleton of my eye: I don’t want to keep watching our club sack manager’s but he has had 21 league games plus 6 cup games now, yet he is still blaming the players.
Elsewhere: Wigan who have a 8 point deduction are now above us after beating Reading 1-0, Exeter and Cambridge was 0-0. Shrewsbury lost at high flying Posh and Pompey won at bottom of the table Fleetwood.
He has to go
Appleton has lost the supporters (if he ever had them) It looks like he’s lost the players. Alfie May was furious at the end of the game.
The only people supporting him are the SMT. Meanwhile we become challengers for a relegation spot.
I said in December he had to be sacked before the transfer window. That didn’t happen.
He has been bringing in his choice of players. This was supposed to prove to us, with the right players, he could take us upwards.
It hasn’t worked. It won’t work if the new players are left on the bench until we’re two goals down. The man is hopeless and the SMT have blundered.
They now find themselves in a very sticky situation. Do they bin him off, do they wait until the end of January, hoping and praying Appleton can get a win somewhere along the line.
Either way the possibility of more players coming in has now diminished and the destruction of our football club carries on.
I had hoped that acquisition of some quality (which surprisingly to me) has happened so far in this window, would give us a lift. I know new players need to blend in, and Rome wasn’t built in a day, but we will not improve unless the builder knows what to do with the bricks. I say again, get him out now before he takes us down.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day…” Quite true, in fact i think it took a few hundred years. I’m not sure i want to wait that long. Appleton…? Marcus Aurelius he ain’t.
I knew that we would lose at Burton…the team was not right, fielding too many new signings who have not bedded in.
I listened with interest to Curbs and Brownie prior to the game as their view that new signings were forming a strong base for next season as this one’s finished already.
If we end up being relegated then it’s a case of putting the cat out,turning off the floodlights cancelling the milk and broadband.
I’m very very very concerned that we are plummeting down and Appleton is so alienated from the fans every game.
Tuesday night is important….fans have had enough and Appleton has the backing of SM let’s see !
Agree with you CA and all the comments, as I have said previously on many occassions we are going nowhere until Charlton actually pay out for a decent manager with a previous good track record. It won’t be cheap, but all these one time Charlies and has beens have been costing Charlton far more in the long run and have taken us nowhere. It doesn’t matter what players you bring in, if you don’t really know your tactics, don’t know what team to put out, play players constantly out of position, can’t even sort out our defence for even one game, make poor use of subsititions and are hopelessly out of your depth when things go wrong, plus always using excuses and blaming something else including certain players, we will just continue to stagnate in this divison until we eventually get relegated!
If we lose/draw Tuesday and give another dreadful permormance, I can see changes being made straight away. As apart from some of the clowns who are supposingly in charge, but don’t take any responsibility for these poor performances, even though they have been instrumental in appointing Appleton and also some of the recruitment of players, the Owners don’t appear to be stupid as they have put monies in for new players, so they will expect action, not just words!
Strong rumour that Appleton has been sacked.
We had an incredible amount of possession – 75%, plus around 11/12 shots on goal and yet never looked like winning.
Sadly Appleton has fallen into the bad habits of unsuccessful managers, since the last game we signed two defenders, one of whom might not have been registered in time, yet the other, Macauley Gillesphey was, but he was sat on the bench. What was he seeing in our three man central defence and two wing-backs that made him think they deserved another go?
Then there was the late introduction of the subs – with 15 minutes to go and two goals down we needed some impact off the bench, especially after conceding the second goal a minute or so into the second half. Yet it took him 30 minutes to make any changes. Why?
Northampton is a must win game that needs to be backed up with a dominant performance that suggests we have a team of players who know what they are doing and believe in the strategy plus understand the manager.
We aren’t going down this season neither are we going up, but we need to look at what’s left of the season as next year’s pre-season.
I hear that he has gone!
We we start all over again, again.
Definitely a lot of rumours out there
September 8th 2023.
Michael Appleton newly appointed and Andy Scott said:
“This can’t happen anymore, today’s the last day that we are a losing club. We’ve lost 6 out of 8, that’s not acceptable. The losing habit has gotta stop. We have to have a mentality that means we can win, Michael will bring that”.
Not quite Winston Churchill like, and maybe Scott should take a look at himself
Walk the walk not talk the talk. Scott has talked a lot since he turned up.