Charlton Athletic 0 Stevenage 0
Another game of scarce quality, and this against a team attempting to get promoted.
A clean sheet has a been a forgotten prize, and I’ll take it, but the football on show, the passing, the basics was awful.
On paper this was our hardest game since Derby, so what happened to that energetic, high pressing, front footed type of football?
Well, a couple of things. The squad that Jones inherited is really poor, relegation fodder poor, but he has quickly given it more resolve, spirit and organization.
The squad is unbalanced and bloated. The only two players he has signed have hardly featured. He was behind the signing of Thierry Small though.
The squad is not fit enough, especially to play the way he eventually wants to. Jones has improved that and vastly bettered game-management. At this stage of the season without the benefit of a pre-season and inheriting two manager’s training routines, this is the best it is going to get.
Jones has been loyal to players, and for many games now has pretty much stuck with a familiar line-up. The only goal was to stay up. By hook or by crook, and by whatever means, but it ain’t been pretty. I believe him when he says it will be a lot better.
It has to be a lot better, and very few of these players, let alone the ones that the new boss is not even considering, have to be replaced with better.
it’s going to be a compelling summer. We aren’t there yet. Four weeks.
MoW: Think it was Hector again, but Kanu ran his balls off.
Elsewhere: Carlisle were beaten at home by the on fire Lincoln, Fleetwood were stuffed at Oxford 4-0, Port Vale lost at Northampton and Cheltenham lost at home to Exeter. Cambridge has picked up and won again beating Wigan 3-1 and Burton were beaten at home 1-3 by Barnsley.
kia ora CA. On top of a mountain. Liked your assessment – let’s keep it in perspective. A friend there felt some of the crowd were close to booing – why don’t they stay away until Nathan sorts it out? We have to be patient and keep reminding ourselves where we are coming from.
Kia ora LP. Mount Cook? Groaning I understand. Booing? What’s the point?
Bob’s peak, queenstown. Enough of a mountain for me!!
😀
In defence of the players today, the Stevenage manager said afterwards that they had outplayed Charlton in every part of the pitch, the ball was hardly ever on the pitch, in all the years I have been watching football l can’t recall seeing a team keep the ball in the air for ninety minutes thus stopping the opposition from playing any sort of football, it was awful to watch, awful
It was hard watching and lacking any real quality and it showed that we still need to battle on to avoid relegation.The table is very tight and we need a good run.
In my humble opinion we looked shattered at times and found Stevenage a challenge but hey a point is a point.
We face two tough home games and Nathan will need to freshen up the team.
How about giving Eskimo Watson a game on Saturday ?…..I’m concerned that he’s not featured in 1st team squads but played well in a recent U21 game at the Valley. He is quality and played well with Dobbo.
That wasn’t a game that will live long in the memory – it was played as though it was the last game of the season where neither side had anything to play for.
Stevenage at least had a chance to get into the play-offs and looked stronger in the second half, we certainly struggled to deal with Verdaine Oliver. Each time had a couple of half chances that they could have done better with but that was it.
We urgently need a creative midfielder, someone who can unlock well organised defences and start spraying passes about in their half, long balls out of defence are only ever going to have a limited effect and that strategy has run its course. Both Exeter and Stevenage had done their homework and were set up to deal with that threat. I’d like to have seen LuaLua come on and maybe TC as well and play a different shape in the last quarter and get Chuks and Bakinson on the end of some crosses.
Lets all remind ourselves where we are. We are fighting a relegation battle with a squad that is not good enough for anything other than that. Jones has been appointed to keep us up and bounce on next season. His tools are an unbalanced squad that he inherited. The games left are not going to be pretty affairs, but we are unbeaten in nine. and at the moment I will take that, and if the ball has to be in the air for the majority of the remaining games to keep us in this division, so be it.
Im over from ireland and went to the match yesterday. Obviously it wasnt a classic game but thought the defence looked quite solid. Lacked a bit of creativity in midfield. So we will take the positive of a clean sheet and move on. If Nathan gets the backing in the summer we’ll be much stronger next year. The last game i saw was Burton at Christmas so it was a big improvement on that especially defence. Cheers Dave
Glad you got back for a game Dave. Easy to forget how bad and easy we were to get beaten before Jones arrived.