Charlton Athletic 1 Birmingham City 0
That’s more like it. A Charlton performance you can get behind. More of that please.
Credit to Nathan Jones on the formation switch and game plan. The turnaround in some of those player performances was nothing short of insane, and it does make you wonder what happened in those last three games.
Full transparency. I took a mental health break from Charlton today. My daughter was swimming at a varsity meet and I was there cheering her and her team on instead of watching the game, so my post match thoughts are basically packaged up from the couple of WhatsApp groups I’m on.
Your comments will be very welcome, but that was clearly quite the transformational performance with the big spending runaway leaders second best by every metric.
The boxed midfield worked, the high intense press was back, the energy was back and we attacked with intensity playing short and long passes. Ramsey and Edwards played further up the pitch, and we defended like our lives depended on it.
Kanu, who by all accounts had a great game, should have given us a lead before the break. As it was, it was Matt Godden who poached the crucial goal, his 4th from really not many opportunities.
I was given a range of MoM’s. Coventry, Docherty, Alan Campbell, Jones, Ramsey and TC when he came on. A real sign of a great performance when picking a best player is almost impossible.
A terrific and stunning result. If we can learn how to beat teams that allow us to keep possession then we can have a say in the promotion race.
🎙️”Charlton spent a fortune. They spent a lot on their squad.” – Chris Davies
⭐️ Kayne Ramsey
🏟️ 16,250 (3,155 Blues)
📸 Kyle Andrews
Well hallelujah! No not the win, as welcome as it was. The Welsh wizard realising he can have a plan B. 4-4-2 in this case.
I wasn’t at the game but by all accounts we were the much better side throughout, also sounds like Brum had an off day.
I’ll accept humble pie for my pre-match prediction, I couldn’t see any way or likelyhood of us getting a win. But a win it was and quite a scalp.
We still have a problem scoring goals. Considering how dominant we were, one goal is less than we should be scoring in such circumstances. Sounds like Kanu worked hard but his final ball is still not good enough. When back to full fitness I expect Leaburn to start alongside Godden.
It remains a mystery to me why NJ watched us play like a Sunday morning pub team who had overdosed Saturday night, for the last three games. Nine points thrown away because of his stubborn nature.
Perhaps he has learnt at last, time will tell……………..
Truly outstanding, the diamond is back served us so well in ‘19, and lo and behold we can play without hoofing so a lesson to players and NJ alike. And there’s a magnificent player in Alan Campbell that was a real surprise.
But let’s not get carried away, same as we shouldn’t get carried away by the odd dud performance. We’ve been broken for so long and will take a while to be properly fixed – why we kick the people that are clearly working so hard and taking us slowly in the right direction is beyond me even tough I share the disappointment and frustration. NJ wears his heart on his sleeve and clearly needs a bit of reciprocal tlc – let’s not send him packing please.
A tactical success for Nathan Jones – he responded well and changed a formation that has been sussed out by several teams, I presume Birmingham prepared for his usual 5-3-2 (it’s what he always starts with after all) but got caught out by the switch and never recovered, their half-time switch with three subs coming on didn’t work, as a team they never got into the match.
The high press and packed midfield neutralised their passing game and gave them no momentum and all we needed to do was score a goal. Which we did, but begs a question, when was the last time we scored from a throw-in? I’m sure someone will tell me it was last week or something recent but I genuinely can’t think.
Another thing that some might have missed – Conor Coventry was off set-piece duty today with Karoy Anderson taking corners etc. The results weren’t much better….but it’s early days.
I’ll give MoM to DK, he should have had one or two goals but both chances were created by him pressing and forcing mistakes and he did that job well and set the tone, really it was a great team performance, no one had a poor game.
From here, more tactical variations and flexibility please.
Yes CA you missed probably the best game of the season as the team worked the hardest I have seen with the back four outstanding, without Gillesphey continually pumping up the ball with left foot to the right hand side with very little effect. Ramsey was superb yet again and we will be hard pushed to keep him next season, with Edwards almost back to brilliant self before his bad injury. Also with the four in midfield and using Ramsey and Edwards as wing backs to get up the field more, we were playing a lot more through the midfield and weren’t hitting the long ball everytime.
Kanu had a great game and did more in the first 20 minutes than Adhadme has done in all the games he has played, the only concern now is if Kanu still has his injury which occured during the game and is not fit enough for our next home game, lucky Burton game has been postponed as will give him more time, Jones in all probability will revert back to Adhadme starting again! Re Kanu’s miss after rounding the goalie, we all thought it was a bad miss, except my friends son, who said it looked like a tight angle and on seeing again today on replay, he was right, as he was right by the byline and and with another defender charging down, who may have been able to tackle or block the shot, he obviously tried to hit it in first time on a very tight angle, which obviously didn’t come off. But his overall display made up for it and he must now be, with Godden the two main starters up front, until Leaburn is fully fit, to contest a place.
TC also must be mentioned, when he came on for the injured Kanu, as he played probably his best game for ages keeping the momentum going and running their defence ragged on the left wing. (Please note Jones) TC is an out and out winger and can come inside from that position right or left, similar to CBT, he is not a main striker!!!
In midfield Coventry and Anderson worked their socks of, but have to disagree abouth A Campbell, I noticed him a lot through the game and like his previous game he seemed, not as bad, but still off the pace. As a midfielder he stood off and hardly man marked any player &/or made any tackles, a bit like Frasier use to do and nearly cost us a goal when he lost his man completely and they crossed low and hard along by the byeline, which fortunatly everyone missed. Though he did make a few tackles in the last 10 minutes before he was subbed. Just hope we see an improvement in his next game.
Re Jones outburst after the game about supporters having a go at him after the previous game and I will go if they want to take over etc. Firstly I condone that sort of really nasty abuse which is just not acceptable anywhere, but as I do myself, he has to accept general critisism and fans shouting this out at matches as both Richard Cawley & Louis Medez pointed out in their reports, all the three previous matches were terrible with no effort, poor tactics plus also hardly any efforts on goal let alone score one, so Jones has to take responsibilty for that and expect critisism, as it wasn’t as if Charlton were unlucky to lose any of those games!
The overall problem at present is whilst we have some really excellent players and can field, quite a strong first eleven, when they put the effort into it and have the right formation & tactics, we also have a lot of very average & poor players who just aren’t up to when called upon. So apart from having to score more goals, we are in the bottom three, both for efforts on target & goals scored, with almost certain injuries to main players, plus also missing through suspension, I cannot at present see us progressing much more than mid table.
So for now lets just hope the players put a decent effort in every game, we see some decent football and some more goals and Jones gets his tactics and subsitutions right! 🙂
Criticism should be accepted and that’s his weakness, abuse should never be tolerated doesn’t matter what you do for a living.
Biggest head in South London, mouth not far behind but stick with him and we won’t regret it, hound him out and who next, who better????
I’ve taken a while to digest yesterday’s game. Firstly, hats off to everyone wearing a red shirt yesterday. Without exception, you played out of your skins.
Paradoxically though, that feeds my concerns. It was our intensity that beat Birmingham yesterday, they couldn’t cope with it and I wonder whether we can sustain that kind of commitment all season. It would be a big ask of both our young players and more mature ones.
Creatively, we’re still not that great and I don’t know that promotion can be won by keeping a watertight defence and nicking the odd goal (yes, I know it worked yesterday, but it may not always.) We had four excellent midfield terriors yesterday. But, unless we can coax more out of Conor Coventry, who has the potential, then we urgently need to sign a quality playmaker (and deadball specialist) in January.
So, while I greatly enjoyed yesterday’s win, and want us to get out of this league as much as anyone, I think we need to be realistic about how much we can get out of our current group of players. We are nearly, nearly, there but just need an additional piece or two to make up the jigsaw. Here’s hoping.