Oct 21
Just a little over 7 months after Nigel Adkins arrived via a Zoom call and talk of Premier League ambitions, Thomas Sandgaard closed the chapter on Adkins’ Charlton managerial career last night with us sat in a League One relegation place.
Please click for moreNigel Adkins future must now be untenable.
Enough of the excuses. Twelve games and still no clear system or pattern of play. No energy, horribly unorganized at the back, ponderous going forward and overrun in midfield. 14 days on the training ground and Adkins is patently unable to organize, present a vision or effect how we play. Similarly from the touchline during the games.
Please click for moreTwo weeks without a game. I kind of think it has dragged, but Adkins squad go again tomorrow when they travel to Lincoln, four places above us in the table.
This international break has followed the same pattern as the last one. A desperately needed win, followed by a conclusive home victory in the Pizza Trophy and then a wait with promises of plenty of work on the training pitch to come.
Please click for moreNo way back for Nigel Adkins now surely.
After Adkins made his 23rd team change in four games we started well. Davison finished clinically from a Leko cross and those two supported by Blackett-Taylor and Lee actually aroused the senses for 30 minutes, but we ran out of legs and ideas and Bolton equalized just before half-time with another long range pot shot with Matthews again culpable.
Half-time and all to play for, but for the love of god what does Adkins say to them during the break?
Please click for moreA pretty defiant press conference from Nigel Adkins yesterday, and who would blame him on the back of the best 45 minutes, by far, we have seen us this season, plus a valuable point.
Question is, is this the start of a journey or are we on the night bus to nowhere. That used to be the N199 🚌, not sure it still is.
Please click for moreTomorrow is not even about winning for me, it is about style and substance.
Adkins’ team selection will tell us a lot about his state of mind. Pull up the drawbridge and hang in there for a point or go for a much needed three points. Whatever his ambition, give us a team that are hungry and organized.
Please click for moreAnother defeat, but it wasn’t just that, it was another game where we weren’t even in it. One shot on target and completely outplayed. Devoid of ideas, identity and confidence.
Don’t let the injury time goal from Lavelle turn your head or the couple of scrambles that followed. This was terrible, we deserved nothing.
Please click for moreWhat a pair. One made of glass the other invisible ink.
Inniss is a real shame. The big fella has real ability and is very capable of playing well above this level, but signing him was always going to be a risk and so it has proven.
Please click for moreWell that little boost of optimism lasted all of five minutes, in fact Watson couldn’t even get the opening second right when he kicked off when everyone else took the knee. Watson’s afternoon did not get any better.
Our worst start to a season for 15 years and just out of the League One relegation places on goal difference after Cheltenham Town, on their first ever visit to The Valley, gave us a footballing lesson.
Please click for moreFrom someone who was asking for some leadership commentary on our transfer strategy through the silence leading up to the deadline, it would be amiss of me if I wasn’t to praise the article yesterday with included insight from Sandgaard, Roddy, Gallen and Adkins.
Please click for moreThe one thing about a sloppy start is there is no covering up the misgivings of a skinny inadequate squad.
In past season’s with a similar anemic pre-season but with a much-less caring owner, we have started well against the odds. At Sunderland a couple of season’s back Lee Bowyer carried a half-filled bench, refusing to sing the ‘pathway to the first-team’ crap and just took the players he felt could come on and make a difference.
Please click for moreGood morning Addicks. How are we doing?
What a great feeling it is for Addicks’ fans to be back at The Valley, which other than for the odd Covid trial event, has sat ghost like for the past 17 months. It is been a weird time for everyone but routines will return this afternoon as friends and family gather to wake up this historic football stadium.
Please click for moreThis was the team that started yesterday to round off the pre-season games at Craven Cottage. We lost 1-0 to a team described as a level or two above us, which galls me but that is because of my own unerring enmity of the Fulham 🤷♂️
With Alex Gilbey recovering from Covid and Ronnie Schwartz “still some way of inclusion” then that ladies and gentlemen is that.
Please click for moreIf our What’s App group chat was as busy on transfer incomings and rumours, as it is on how great the new kits are, then we’d all be a little more upbeat about the start of the new season starting a week tomorrow.
I am a patient soul when it comes to Charlton and I want to be careful not to put myself in the bedwetting department, but my expectation, perhaps aspirational, of a summer rebuild has so far been a long way off the mark.
Please click for moreNigel Adkins, several members of staff and players were each impacted by Covid last week meaning they had top self-isolate away front the rest of the squad and missed the pre-season run-out at Dartford.
Cases in the UK are surging as it fully opens tomorrow with the Delta variant spreading across Europe and countries arguing over who and who cannot enter.
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Chicago Addick 