Where is everyone?
I’m always secretly pleased that we lose a pre-season game. It dispels thoughts that we are great and don’t need more personnel. At least, it should.
I notice the club stance has gone from ‘we remain unbeaten’ to ‘a nice little run-out for the lads’ after today’s defeat to Jacko’s AFC Wimbledon where by all accounts we were poor.
Almost a 1,000 Addicks gathered at Cherry Red Records Stadium and would have been disappointed by what they saw.
Mind you, I try not to pay attention to pre-season, especially this early. There has been many seasons when we have trounced all and sundry to then not win a league game until late September or times when we’ve lost every friendly, but then the night before the season opener someone switched our team for that of Man City’s and we’ve started the season brilliantly.
Writing about friendlies has reminded me of the last time I went to one. I went mostly as an excuse to have a couple of beers with my old mate Dave Thomson (Drinking During the Game 💔), and my son and a couple of mates were at Bournemouth to see us play quite well and win 2-1.
It was 2009 (and I wrote about it of course). Bournemouth were in League Two and that season we did make the League One play-off’s but lost to Swindon.
Anyway, fast forwarding to today. Those Addicks’ faithful will also be asking where the hell were half the players?
It was considered too soon for Karlan Grant and Danny McNamara (no pre-season as yet for both). Collins Sichenje is being slowly returned to action, likewise Josh Edwards. Micah Mbick is yet to begin training after a knee injury in March whilst on loan at Colchester.
Charlie Kelman’s shoulder injury looks a concern. No inside information, just intuition. Otherwise no sign of Rob Apter or Will Mannion.
Nathan Redmond, who has been on trial at Sparrows Lane, did not feature either this afternoon.
Another friendly on Tuesday away at Colchester. We are on countdown and this squad as it stands is not going to be anywhere near good enough for next season’s Championship.
I quite agree CA we won’t finish in top 20 that’s for sure, as for pre friendlies this one was an absolute shambles our players didn’t know who to pass the ball to when they had it they looked clueless but at least NJ can sit there and scratch his head and see we defo need at least 2 more midfielders and a decent forward. Let’s all keep our glasses half full at the mo you never know something might actually happen.. COYR
Just read your piece on Dave’s passing… he would’ve been pleased.
🙏
I don’t get carried away by the results of pre-season friendlies, but what you do want to see are the partnerships forming, new players settling in, and confidence building, none of which were apparently on display yesterday!
The point is also to get to the first game of the season and hit the ground running, and this is where I get a bit frustrated by the lack of signings in the midfield, so far. The inability to keep the ball and dictate games was a concern last season, and we often had only 30-35 percent possession, which using the old analogy, if you don’t have the ball you can’t score. As it stands, we may be using a different formation, but with the same players, who sadly are just not good enough. The longer we leave it to get some players in, the less time they have to integrate themselves into the team and the system. Curtis Fleming mentioned post-match yesterday that signings we make later in the window inevitably lack that match-fitness, which probably affects their immediate impact on the team.
Read some rumours about Jordon Holsgrove, who before yesterday I had never heard of, who has been plying his trade in Portugal for Estoril. Certainly sounds like the kind of player we need, though it would be a big outlay when they are mentioning a release clause of five million. It’s nice to see our name mentioned in the rumour section alongside teams like Werder Bremen, after those years of shopping in the bargain basement!
When the eternal optimists that inhabit ‘Charlton Life’ are worried. You can be sure we’re in for a tricky start to the season….
It might give us some comfort to learn that Coventry lost 3-2 at Wimbledon last week, according to a friend of mine who supports them.
CA spot on , having watched it you can only say it was hard going it’s blatantly obvious where we a lacking, Curtis Flemings interview yesterday says recent signings didn’t play because they are not up to speed yet. So in my thinking whoever we buy now with only a couple of weeks to the season opener they won’t be up to scratch coyr
I think unless they are with clubs and have started pre-season. Grant and McNamara were free agents.
Mind you both Kelman and Knibbs complained of an interrupted pre-season last year due to transfer speculation and they were with L Orient and Reading respectively.