Charlton Athletic 0 Derby County 1
You can’t criticize the effort, but you can criticize almost everything else.
Derby are not pretty to watch and I know we all do it, but their time wasting was tragic, nonetheless they walked away with the 3 points mostly due to us once again gift wrapping a goal.
There was no Dobson, out with a sniffle, so we know what that means, and oddly there was no CBT. I’m not sure if there had been further conversations around him playing against us, but Paul Warne said afterwards “If I’m being really honest I didn’t want to play him here – I just thought it was too soon.”
But I tell you what, how we missed him. I’ve said all season that our only form of attack was to give it to CBT, and with no one brought it to replace him, we have looked so powderpuff in the final third without him, and there’s not even an inch of excitement now when we go forward.
We used to need three to win, we still do, but that was once a possibility, but not now. Alfie has scored once in 9 games, and I can’t ever see Ladapo scoring. He was once again shocking.
Curbs called it after in that there are so many new players, which cannot be good for morale or cohesion. Of course new players have been forced by the fact that the ones we signed previously are crap. Noticeably we had a number 40, 46, 47 and 66 on the pitch by the final whistle.
It took until half-time for Fleming to change it to the formation that gave us more threat in the 2nd half at Blackpool, but we offered very little going forward and Derby killed the game off early.
If Michael Appleton is watching I wonder if he still thinks we are not in a relegation fight. 3 points now off the relegation places and we’ve played more games.
Next week is our biggest game for many years. Hopefully the new manager, who was at the game stood in an Executive Box, will be appointed as soon as possible. That’s as long as he hasn’t changed his mind.
MoM: Either Thomas of Ness, I’ll with the latter.
Elsewhere: Reading got a point at local rivals Oxford, Wycombe had a big win at Cheltenham and Carlisle put up a fight at Leyton Orient but went down 3-1. Fleetwood won for the first time in 13 games beating Port Vale 3-0. Stockley was among the scorers.
I was at the game and saw things differently. For me it was a spirited effort, although most players hadn’t played regularly together, without the error, we were by far the better team. Ness was much better and controlled in defence. I thought early on both Backinson and Delano looked sharp and better but both tired. May again was tireless.
In the 2 nd half Derby. hardly had an effort on our goal.
Kanu made a good showing and his header on goal deserved more.
Against a 3rd place team, for me the overall effort and showing gave me much more confidence than capitulations I’ve seen previously
Thanks, Rob. I needed that!
Who is Delano ??
I wasn’t sure either. Probably an auto correct. Or a new partly fit loanee 😉
Yes my thoughts exactly. If Jones has a week to get some cohesion amongst the new players I feel we can get that elusive win.
We were better than Derby in every department except time wasting and grazing in the pitch!
Best performance for some time bar that awful gift of a goal.
One great save but too many other errors and nerves from AMB in my view.
Let’s hope we can get some points on the board before we beat Pompey 😂😂
Many are seeing the imminent arrival of Nathan Jones as our saviour. I’m not as optimistic as them,
We’re in the sh*t. We have sixteen games remaining we need to win between a third and half of them. Whilst hoping Port vale and Reading can’t match that. 50 points being the median safety total in this division.
I was there and some of our attacking play in the first half was direct and caused Derby some headaches.They are a good team and Hourahan was classy and I could see why he Premiership level.
AMB was brave being clouted making a save and after that he decided to punch balls coming in as trying to catch was a fought against their forwards.Dobbo sat in the sand watching the game and Nathan Jones in an executive box.
Once again Eskimo Watson was benched and came on late in the second half……with Jones coming in I feel he will be played from the start as Jones knew him at Luton
Fans didn’t boo at the end and both Pearcy and Flemming are doing a good job apart from our one defensive error that gave then the lead.
Paul Warne was not looking forward to the game but 3 points will help.
Next week is vital for us in a lot of ways….Charlton are just waiting for the FA and LMA to ratify and sign the forms and Jones can begin.
I understand there is a great doctor in Hungary who can sort Dobbos “sniffles”
The positives – we worked hard and made Derby work hard and had lots of possession.
The negatives – we lack a bit of midfield creativity and spark that might have unlocked a goal or two. All the players we signed barring Freddie Ledapo are either defenders or defensive midfielders and having lost CBT we’ve made things a tad harder for ourselves on the creativity front.
But that’s 12 games without a win now and while I don’t think we’re in a relegation battle (we just don’t look like a team that’s going down and I’ve seen enough relegation teams to see a difference). However we need a win against Reading and Lincoln over the next ten days otherwise we will be.
A couple of interesting ‘injuries’ yesterday.
Dobson had a ‘calf strain’ which translates to ‘still in talks with that Hungarian team’
For Derby CBT was ‘injured’ which translates to ‘ we made a secret under the table deal with Derby, that he wouldn’t play against us at The Valley’
I have to say anyone thinks we aren’t in a relegation battle. Has enormous confidence in our miss-firing mob. Or some very nice rose-tinted glasses.