Aug 10
I love this team. Lee Bowyer’s team. Well, team’s because this is the second one he has had to build. Bowyer and his coaching team, and not forgetting miracle worker Steve Gallen, have put together a group of players of such energy and gusto. They are almost rewriting the ‘Charlton way’. Look at that picture of Conor Gallagher. He’s only been here just over a week. The personality of this team is to die for. It really is.
The 5th and final loan happened way after the 5 o’clock deadline tonight when Brighton’s experienced Israeli international Beram Kayal signed up for the season.
Kayal is thought off very fondly down on the south coast, and it was pleasing to see so many good wishes from Seagulls fans towards both the player and us.
The Israeli moved from Celtic to Brighton in 2015 and made 122 appearances, including 37 in the Premier League during the last two seasons. He brings ability and much needed experience, and he sounds every bit a Bowyer player.
Ready or not, here we go. Back in The Championship, back after that wonderful Sunday at the end of May when we celebrated a goal like nothing before. It still gives me goosebumps.
Yes, we’ve had a another summer of player turnover, and potential ruination thanks to our short-sighted and arrogant owner. Our hero Lee Bowyer publicly rejected by him, Jacko and Marshall to follow suit. Only the calmness and loyalty of Bowyer preventing total Addick meltdown.
Jul 31
Worried yet? I’d hate to think how much Bow’s and Gallen’s phone bills are. Yet still we wait for additions, and it looks more and more that we will head to Lancashire with a squad very short of numbers, with Lewis Page and Chuks Aneke injured, and a bench full of kids. Deji vu.
You may be able to give yourselves a slow start in League One, but I worry that The Championship is less forgiving. Our start, on paper, isn’t the worst, which is handy in that we will spend the first two games adding players, apparently as many as five or six, and then the following four to six weeks integrating them.
The Addicks are off to Spain this weekend for a pre-season training camp. The importance of which cannot go unnoticed. After years of Katrien Meire not being able to hold a piss up in a brewery type planning, it was Karl Robinson who eventually managed to convince Roly to cover a short trip to Ireland in 2017, hastily thrown together and in fact just imitating what he did the season before at MK Dons.
Last year Bow managed to convince Roly to splash on a Portugal bonding trip, which was the beginning of a journey of oneness and desire that ended on the Wembley steps.
And now we got Lee Bowyer, we’re f’kin dynamite.
Glorious news. “Charlton Athletic are delighted to confirm that Addicks’ boss Lee Bowyer has agreed a contract extension with the club.” (more)
What a difference a day makes, or really an evening. Lee Bowyer and Duchatelet agreeing to a deal last night just hours after the owner once again went into one of his mental rants airing the clubs dirty laundry in public.
In the fact the two stories sit side by side on the official website. It really is bonkers.
Roland Duchatelet has typed or dictated some scatterbrained old tosh in the past, but yesterday’s beats the lot.
As always blaming everybody and everything other than himself. The man has no shame. Dragging into public consumption details of salaries and negotiations is utterly disgusting. He trashes other clubs and their owners because as we know only Roland has the plan for a sustainable and successful football club.
Duchatelet has dealt with agents broadly since he and Katrien Meire were in charge of the club. We had the third highest agent fees in League One in 2018 and in two seasons RD lined agents pockets to the tune of over £1m. So why the dig at Lee having a representative? The poor bloke has had to deal with Duchatelet’s representative Lievan de Turck for ages. Conflict of interests my arse.
Heartbroken.
Roland Duchatelet slathers the cream on top of a disastrous short-sighted reign as our owner. I don’t know if I can hate that man any more.
A post obviously written by the old bastard himself or an advisor is on the Official Site has just told devastated Charlton fans everywhere that he has been unable to reach agreement with Lee Bowyer and his will leave the club.
A surprise signing today down in SE7. Macauley Bonne, Leyton Orient’s top scorer from the last two seasons, 49 goals in all. Even more surprising was there was a fee. Lee Bowyer indicated that RD maybe prepared to offer small fees on players, where there is future value.
Bonne signed an extension to his O’s contract last summer and it is thought that there was a break fee of £200,000.
Roland Duchatelet is many things but sensible is not one adjective that springs to mind.
Some way, some how Lee Bowyer and his management team cobbled together a group of players, improved them, gave them belief and not only got them promoted but also managed to superglue players and fans back together. After many seasons of depressing dislocation, last season culminating with that Sunday three weeks ago, when almost 40,000 Addicks rocked Wembley Stadium, those men gave us memories for a lifetime.
I’ve hardly removed my Charlton pants for washing and already Twitter is alive with rumours of who’s joining and leaving. As Bow said success breeds teams trying to steal your players and manager. I’m paraphrasing of course, but if the Belgium twit doesn’t get his finger out then I going to go over there and daub his building with my sharpie myself.
The internet is suggesting all sorts of clubs that want to talk to Bowyer, but according to the Rat and the more reliable source of Rich Cawley, Bow will continue his discussions with the owner over a new contract next week.
So what were you doing this time last week?
Tremendous wasn’t it. My screen time has been off the charts this week. I have watched every video, zoomed in on every photo and read every article. As the song goes…. I just can’t get enough.
You’ll never going to believe us, but the reds are going up. Allez, Allez, Allez.
Well, what a journey that was. What a day. What a team, what heroes Lee Bowyer and Johnnie Jackson are. Yesterday will be a day Addicks, team and supporters as one, will remember for the rest of their lives.
The finer details of the game are a little blurry. It was game that flipped from scrappy to nervy to a finely balanced battle. It’s interesting that reports of the game seemed to think we were deserving winners. I wasn’t so sure from where I sat, but Sunderland are a very functional side, hard to beat, but lacking flair. Meanwhile Bowyer has put together a team that can change a game, be the more adventurous, can play around sides. The first goal, which was pure poetry, a great example.
How we all doing?
My heart rate is a bit more normal, and I’ve spent a large chunk of the day trying to sort out tickets. Although I have dipped back into video clips of Friday. It’s like heroin. And there’s been a fair bit of singing. Just me, on my own, but my voice is a lot better.
Much thanks to various friends for the help with tickets and advice. I’ve spent a lot of the day on the CAFC tickets website, which is pretty easy to navigate, although better I’d think on a computer than an iPad.
I took today of work mostly to look after my daughter who wasn’t well enough to go to school, but it also did me a proper favour as my voice was shot and I am absolutely knackered. That was quite the weekend.
Today the club made a decision to split the Jimmy Seed Stand for the 2nd leg and make available 1,000 tickets to Addicks. These went on sale at 5pm. By midnight 850 of those had been sold. The rest will surely go first thing and over 24,000 Addicks will back Bowyer’s men on Friday night.
Back at Gatwick now with a very croaky voice and a head full of songs and dreams.
These last few years most of us, and very certainly me, have lost and forgotten what it was to be a Charlton fan. The fellowship, the connection, the unerring pride and hope handed down through generations or founded by those new to being an Addick. It was gone, perhaps forever. Don’t get me wrong the old bastard can’t sell the club a day too soon, but Lee Bowyer, his coaching team, and the group of players he has brought together has somehow, in spite of the owner, given us something to cheer and believe in.
Truly remarkable ticket sales for the two Doncaster games home and away.
The depth of feeling and support from Addicks has been breathtaking this week. In fact it has been far longer than that, but the crescendo this week has been something special.
Good communication from the club and a well organized sale of tickets will more likely see 3,800 Addicks at the Keepmoat on Sunday lunchtime and an almost sell-out at The Valley for the 2nd leg. Hopefully every fan who wanted a ticket will get one.
Another message from Roland Duchatelet.
“I would also like to pass on my congratulations Norwich City and to Chris Wilder and Sheffield United on their respective promotions to the Premier League.”
Honestly, how does the old fart’s brain work? Not one mention of Lee Bowyer in his latest OS missive, but clearly wants to remind us that he almost nearly signed up Chris Wilder as our manager. No mention of the fact that Wilder told Duchatelet to stick it and he then went and hired Russell Slade instead.
And that worked out well.
Allez, Allez, Allez.
What a result that was. The Valley rocked again today as Lee Bowyer’s team bounced on with Addicks’ fans right there behind them. As Bow said let’s just be there waiting if the others want to slip up and offer us an opportunity.
I was bouncing around a bit myself today and followed the game by a variety of ways, but even the first half we were good. Yet they were very good too showing every inch of why they hadn’t lost for 28 games and will absolutely go up as champions.
The communication machine is well and truly in motion among Roland Duchatelet’s power cracker management elite. Not quite a trans-channel telegraph but a text message, sent to Lee Bowyer last night telling him that he will probably get an offer of some kind from the owner next week.
Outwardly at least, Bowyer looks as if not much bothers him and rightly is putting results and performances over and above waiting for a text message “from someone who works for the owner.” Bowyer also reminds those concerned that Johnnie Jackson and Andy Marshall and he come as a team. All three of those gentlemen’s work will not have gone unnoticed by others.
Charlton had six players away on international duty – Lyle Taylor, Igor Vetokele, Krystian Bielik, Josh Cullen, Josh Parker and Chris Maxwell. The last three didn’t get to play although Cullen may get another chance on Tuesday when the Irish host Georgia.
Taylor’s long trip to the Cayman Islands ended most likely in disappointment, but Igor’s Angola qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations after they beat Botswana 1-0 on Friday. Bielik played for Poland’s U21 against England in a friendly at Ashton Gate and fell awkwardly in the 2nd half, but did finish the game.
Huge, huge win.
Scenes in my kitchen when after a goalmouth scramble Igor Vetokele got the last touch to force the ball over the line to give us our first win for a month. A massive 3 points especially with Peterborough and Blackpool losing and Donny drawing.
However it was a turgid 1st half performance from the Addicks, and the Dons were worthy leaders at half-time, although Lyle Taylor missed what seemed an open goal on his old patch.
I woke up uneasy. Feeling a sense of dread and deja vu, or whatever the Flemish equivalent is.
Yesterday was disappointing, very. Blackpool are decent but it was another missed opportunity. No win in four, and a creeping impression that we are suddenly easier to play against and we haven’t any solutions. Or goals.
Three points behind 2nd and four behind 1st as we approached the end of the January transfer window. Since then we have fallen away badly thanks to one man. The richest, most obtuse and neglectful owner in our history.
Roland Duchatelet has made some shameful decisions in his time as Charlton owner, but selling our top scorer, and pocketing the £2m, then offloading high wage earners Nicky Ajose and Billy Clarke and allowing just a short term signing of a 28-year old journeyman from Gillingham in the last 72 hours of the transfer window might top the lot.
As our promotion rivals all around us invested heavily we slunked into the background like someone uninvited to the party. If Bowyer and Jackson keep us in contention, Lennie Lawrence’s crown of adversity will have been well and truly topped.
24 hours until the transfer deadline passes, and not a rumour in sight, wild, concrete or otherwise. I don’t know what the Flemish is for deja vu, but this is stonewall Duchatelet. How many times has he left us in this situation..
At the turn of the year our squad was down to the bare bones with not ready kids sat on the bench. Since the new year Jonny Williams, Chris Maxwell and Ben Purrington have come in. Jed Steer, Jamie Ward, Nicky Ajose and Karlan Grant have left, so we are one down on numbers. Billy Clarke potentially also leaves tomorrow.
For an undisclosed fee. Roundly expected to have been £2m.
It was Bob Peeters who gave Karlan Grant, or Karlan Ahearne Grant as he was known then, his league debut at just 17-years old. He was nowhere near ready. The following season Guy Luzon and the infamous Karel Fraeye also threw him into the fold as the club staggered from one debacle to the next, eventually we were relegated as all matter of soft toys would rain down onto The Valley on a regular basis.
Grant was played in wrong positions, was horribly mismanaged, was sent out on loan, and bounced between youth football and the bench as other young strikers were loaned in ahead of him and all the while every time he looked up he had a new manager to talk to. Yes, Grant has been at Charlton since he was 12, but does he owe us anything?
Ben Purrington has signed on loan until the end of the season. Purrington is a Rotherham player but has played every league game at Wimbledon this season where he has been on loan.
That alone makes a welcome change to bringing in a loan player that is either returning from injury or an inexperienced young player from a big club that is looking to get some games under his belt. As Lee Bowyer said “the big positive is that he’s played every game at Wimbledon and is ready to go.”
The very experienced Chris Maxwell looks likely to sign on loan from Preston to compete with Dillon Phillips for the no. 1 jersey. The 28-year old Welshman has played over 350 games, and was Preston’s first choice all of last season, and this until November when he was sent off for two yellow cards. Ex-Addicks loanee Declan Rudd has grabbed his place.
Lee Bowyer, whilst often praising Phillips, clearly feels he can sign better, and I would think Bowyer has Maxwell pencilled into start. Phillips understandably will think that signals the end of his Charlton career and will run down his contract and move on in the summer.
Lee Bowyer talked about two new players joining this week after the game yesterday. The one in the crowd was Crystal Palace’s Jonny Williams (photo courtesy of @KGtopsnapper), although throughout his long injury lay off’s the Welshman has gone a little bit Conor McGregor!
Williams is a ball playing midfielder, and a very good one at that, but has had devils luck with injuries. Charlton have a few times been around the periphery of signing the 25-year old, but we were always deemed a division too low. Williams has hardly played in five seasons for Palace and has been on loan to Ipswich Town, Nottingham Forest, Milton Keynes and Sunderland. The last two whilst they were in The Championship. He has still been a regular for Wales during that period though.
I gave a little punch of the air yesterday as I queued for Doctor Doom’s Fearful at Universal’s Islands of Adventure when the final whistle blew at The Valley.
Back to winning ways to start the new year and into 5th.
Sounded as in the first half we were awesome, many describing it as our best football of the season with the team playing with confidence and finesse as Walsall chased shadows. Of course scoring two goals in the first 10 minutes will help that.
Sounds as if Jamie Ward’s short Charlton career will end when he goes back to Nottingham Forest this weekend. Lee Bowyer suggested it will be a question of finance, but reading between the lines I would think Bow wants someone more reliable and fitter.
Ward has only started six games and come on as a sub in an additional three. He’s never been fully fit and hasn’t played for a month. He does bring experience and a nice range of passing but generally when he has played he has generally been disappointing
Like a few other things in a busy last few weeks I missed that the EFL have extended an invitation to CARD to discuss the present and future of the club. This follows EFL’s meeting with Duchatelet, club staff and CAST in recent months.
Duchatelet ranted again on Friday ringing into his mate at Sky Sports, Jim White suggesting, as Lee Bowyer also did last week, that the sale may be completed in Januzzzzzzzz.
Cancel the open top bus, put the rosette back in the drawer we will not be going to Wembley this year, or with Lee Bowyer’s attitude any time soon. We were always cack in the cup, and now we can’t even be bothered.
I was very disappointed in the team Bowyer put out, especially the bench. Where’s the match-winner, game changer sat on there? I mean we are not playing on Tuesday, we have a week until our next game, so what’s with all the precautions? We’ve only just had an international break.
Hugely disappointing today. Another game we dominated but didn’t make it count and as night follows day we folded as Coventry changed it up, went more direct and found our weak spot down the wings. That’s 9 goals conceded in 3 games and how many from crosses?
We can’t kill teams off, only once have we won this season by more than one goal, and with our defence as holey as the Vatican, we are looking like we need to score many more than one to win.
I love it when Bowyer talks top two, talks his team up, but we are so far off the top two and unless we sort out the defence and possibly change the keeper our promotion journey will turn itself around and make it’s way to mid table.
Funny, well not funny, but only yesterday one of my commenters said that our problem was that we were letting too many goals in. I replied saying we had the joint 6th best defensive record in the league. We did.
Without a doubt we have often looked shaky at the back this season, not helped by any means of it being chopped and changed due to injuries. There is also the worthwhile argument that Dillon Phillips should never have lost his place between the posts.
Lovely result today. Bradford’s league place belies them, they are loudly backed at Valley Parade and it is always a tough place to win.
But win we did. It was a gritty display, perhaps with an added nasty streak. Yet we showed some good skill, were determined, focused and scored with a couple of superb finishes. My, we could be talking about Bowyer the player.
I am more than happy Bow has introduced a tough streak. For too long we have been easy pushovers. We are going to pick up bookings though, that’ll we need to deal with.
Roland Duchatelet did the right thing today and made Lee Bowyer permanent first-team manager. Well deserved Lee.
The statement says a few things, possibly. There is a chance that the EFL told RD the club needs some stability and a permanent manager would be a start, but on recent history I’d be surprised that the EFL would be that demanding. It may tell us that the Aussie bid is dead, or not. It is only a 9 month contract after all, and I don’t think the two things are related. Finally it appears Richard Murray still has a tongue.
What happened? I listened to the 1st half and there wasn’t much to get excited about. At half time I had to go out for the remainder of the afternoon. Later I checked the final score and all hell had let loose.
Grant did well to win the ball out wide and feed Lyle Taylor who tapped home. But then Southend equalized within a couple of minutes. After that Grant had a goal scratched off for offside, but Tarique Fosu was on and was getting in some good positions. From a corner in the 87th minute, Josh Cullen put in an accurate ball and Krystian Bielik headed crisply home in front of 1,600 travelling Addicks.
Jamie Ward snuck under the door at The Valley on Friday after Sky Sports and the BBC had wrapped up their final transfer window coverage and gone home for the weekend.
There was mad panic loaning today around the EFL, and it looked as if the Addicks were not going to get the one more player Lee Bowyer had hoped for. A striker, a good player who can play anywhere up top Bowyer described him as yesterday, but no whispers to who that could be until around 4.30pm, when this player turned out to be Jamie Ward.
The misery continued for Addicks tonight. After the Daily Mail carried a story that Roland Duchatelet is refusing to pay a 10% bonus on salaries to certain staff if specific cross-cutting targets, put in place by the Belgian, were met. Those targets driven home by latest puppet Lieven de Turck have been achieved amongst job losses and a hard restructuring of expenditures across the whole club.
These normal hard working people have worked in a rudder-less and depressing environment for a long time, but have had promises broken by a multi-millionaire pocketing any incoming cash he can and notably refusing to give academy players, lauded by him initially, bottled water and taking out paper towels from the dispensers.
Now we know what a c*** Duchatelet is, but.. Richard Murray. Hold your sorry head in shame.
If only CAFC would have given us this interview with Lee this morning, could have saved a lot of frantic refreshing and roaming charges. You are not the only one on cut backs you know Charlton.
By the way did you see CARD’s latest stunt was to deliver 100 bottles of water to the academy team at Sparrows Lane this morning. Brilliant, and it really caught the imagination of the nation’s media.
Lied to again by the club it seems. Patrick Bauer wasn’t offered a new contract, just an extension on his new one, which he has refused, or in fact Duchatelet offered nothing at all. Judging by his Tweet today to 4,700 followers he may not be sticking around until Saturday. And who can blame him?
“Charlton say that austerity is necessary to “restore the financial health of the club”. But Duchatelet has brought Charlton Athletic to its knees over the last four years, demeaning the club with every misjudged cut, sale, sacking and bad appointment. Staff that leave now are rarely replaced and the whole club is desperate for profound change and renewal. For the long-term survival of Charlton Athletic, all that matters is Duchatelet finally selling this club on to people who can take better care of it.”
From the excellent article in today’s Independent written by Jack Pitt-Brooke.
Sunderland v Charlton 12.30pm (live on Sky Sports). Two weeks time.
Today, we are at Crawley in the latest pre-season friendly. They have a manager called Harry Kewell, who if rumours were correct could have been Charlton’s manager for the past 6 months!
Expect a team and bench this afternoon with a good sprinkling of academy players. Whilst Elliot Ward has moved on, Simon Dawkins and Rohan Ince will probably feature. Ince is a rather limited defensive midfielder, and was released by Brighton at the end of last season. Ince has been relegated from League One in each of the last two seasons whilst on loan. First of all with Swindon, then with Bury.
Today was the traditional pre-season run out at Welling. Nicky Ajose and Lyle Taylor got the goals in a 2-1 win. A crowd of just 1,020, the lowest ever, witnessed it.
Two different sides played each half and included trialists Simon Dawkins and central defender Elliot Ward. Dawkins is an attacking midfielder, aged 30 and has been playing out in the U.S. for San Jose Earthquakes. Before that he did well at Derby. 33-year old Ward has had a string of clubs and was most recently on loan at MK Dons. Blackburn released him after last season. Bowyer said he will make quick decisions on the two, but in my mind these two are typical of the summer-bottom-of-the-barrel signings we have seen under Duchatelet.
Lee Bowyer talked today about a potential “big loan” signing, which sounds promising accept the Belgian football genius is in charge of proceedings.
He also talked of ongoing interest in Patrick Bauer and Josh Magennis. Remember Bowyer said he accepted that Duchatelet would sell five players in the summer, if he could bring in four. A little lopsided mathematics if you ask me. Harry Lennon and Ezri Konsa have already gone. Possibly Magennis and Bauer will follow with I suspect Igor Vetokele going out on loan again due to his high wages.
With noises getting louder that the Aussie takeover is collapsing like a deck of cards, caretaker manager Lee Bowyer has made his first signing of his managerial career, and a half decent one it seems too.
As picked up by me and a few others Bowyer and Jacko had made the Wimbledon striker their number one summer target once they were re-installed as caretakers by Duchatelet, and although Taylor had a cast of thousands to choose from, including Sunderland, the 28-year old picked SE7 as his home for the next two years.
Seems like about 100 years ago that chant cannoned out of the away end at Brentford. It is coming up 4 years to be exact, but Igor Vetokele this week will make his umpteenth re-appearance at Sparrows Lane for pre-season training on Wednesday.
Lee Bowyer has never seen him play, in fact most of us have only seen a snippet of the 26-year old, who played 25 times for Sint Truiden last season. I will repeat what has been said by Addicks a thousand times – a fit Igor with the right attitude should score buckets of goals in League One….
Another less than straight forward day for us Addicks.
I woke to an article from Rich Cawley saying that Duchalelet was preparing the sale of Patrick Bauer to Blackburn for as little as £400,000. A deal attractive to the Belgian as the cash would all be upfront.
Rich followed this by suggesting that Duchatelet is also planning to cash in Tariqe Fosu and Joe Aribo, and that he will not sanction a pre-season tour. This because he refuses to pay for anything other than the operating costs, which he will fund with a fire-sale.
One of the discussions Roland Duchatelet had at The Valley this week was with Lee Bowyer, and the club have confirmed that Bowyer will continue in his role as caretaker manager until for the foreseeable future.
The sadly anticipated morning after the evening before. I hope Addicks’ fans all got home safe and sound, I understand it was a bit hairy during and after the game. Superb support from Charlton fans again though, a resurrection of pride that can be put solely at the feet of Lee Bowyer, who spoke again very well after the game.
It continually surprised me that we clung on to any play-off hopes during Karl Robinson’s reign. We didn’t win from the middle of November through to January and when the season hotted up in February and March we won just once, away at relegated MK Dons. It was pretty desperate at times as Robinson stuck to a plan that clearly wasn’t working and although the finger should always be pointed at Duchatelet and ex-CEO Meire for not giving any manager or head coach a base or confidence to which to build from, Robinson was given a lot more to work with than his predecessors.
We just weren’t good enough were we?..
Charlton ended the season how they started it back in August. Short on options, quality and goals. Lee Bowyer and Johnnie Jackson brought back togetherness, spirit and pride, but they had no way to address the continuous issues that Roland Duchatelet has besieged every single manager or head coach that has taken the team since the old bastard walked into our lives.
Shrewsbury over-powered us, roughed us up and played to a style that they have perfected under one manager for almost two seasons. We can bemoan that their goalscorer should have been sent off, and we were refused a blatant penalty, but the best team won over two games.
How we feeling Addicks?
Yes, me too, and I haven’t got the stress of trying to buy tickets. Got to wonder why the club decided to use Ticketmaster for the home leg, but I long gave up trying to fathom what happens behind the scenes at The Valley and I feel for those working in the ticket office.
Tickets for tomorrow’s home game appeared to be selling well with vast areas of the Covered End sold out. Shrewsbury tickets went on sale today to season ticket holders. My brother and a couple of mates (all lapsed season ticket holders) wait with baited breath.
Mission accomplished…
But, it still peeved me a little that we played crappy on the telly again, and very disappointing for the 1,611 Addicks who made the long journey and whilst they made a lot of noise deep down they will feel a little cheated.
Sure, our play-off spot was pretty much sealed early in the game with what was going on at Priestfield, but we didn’t really get out of first gear and to use a ‘Bow-ism,’ they wanted it more, and the points meant more to them.
Something tells me I’m into something good..
It’s back. That exhausting, nerves wrecked, voice croaky feeling. And I only watched it on iFollow!
Brilliant result yesterday, with the players putting in a phenomenal amount of effort. It wasn’t a great game, with few chances, but we won because we wanted it more. We rode our luck, got a goal of Jason Pearce’s arse, Ben Amos made a couple of vital saves, and all through, The Valley was a wall of noise.
What a difference a week makes..
How an earth is that the same team that we saw last Saturday? Bowyer may well have learnt more from two defeats than three consecutive wins, and he deserves massive credit for turning it around.
That was an outstanding result today by a team that carried out his instructions exactly. I watched the 2nd half on iFollow and there wasn’t one moment when a Pompey player wasn’t surrounded by one or two Charlton ones. They chased and harried every single ball, and when in possession we were clever and precise with it.
We’ve all done it..
Be on a flight during a Charlton game, just before legally allowable you turn your phone on and watch the signal slowly appear and then with heart in mouth check for the score. I’ve done it a lot and rarely have I punched the air in delight. I did last night.
Well, well, well. How totally unexpected was that. Or wasn’t it. This is Charlton we are talking about after all. One minute they kick you in the nuts, the next lift your hopes higher than a mountain.
It’s good to know some things don’t change..
I’m too old in the tooth and been supporting to club too long to even be surprised by that performance. It was utter toilet from the first whistle to the last. It was almost as if those first three Bowyer games were figments of our imaginations.
It is the hope that kills you, but at least the players haven’t led us too far down the garden path and have extinguished that hope in the middle of April.
For the first time this season I will be at The Valley tomorrow to cheer on Lee Bowyer’s boys. My first Charlton game of the season. I’m shocked by that sentence.
Anyway I felt it was time to get behind the Addicks as we go in search of a play-off place and what was an ever increase improbable promotion when Karl Robinson was in the managerial seat. We’d won one game of the previous 8 under Robinson and I shake my head at how we are still in with a shout.
That was awful..
That was poor tonight from the Addicks, as the team went back in time showing a severe lack of imagination and belief on the pitch giving us all once again a reality check that we possibly are not good enough for a top six berth. Certainly Wigan, Blackburn and Shrewsbury are on a different planet to us, and we have to play two of them in our last five games.
We have to hope that Bowyer and Jackson, a big test now of their fledgling managerial qualities, can get the players up for the remaining games because they are each against better teams than Bristol Rovers and AFC Wimbledon.
An away point is still an away point..
I’m in Sarasota at the moment and was unable to pay yesterday’s game a lot of attention, but it said a lot about what Lee Bowyer has brought that the result was considered disappointing.
From looking around at the post match comments it sounded like the performance lacked the intensity and attacking quality of the previous games, yet the pitch was poor and Bristol Rovers are not.
Siesta Key, Florida
