Dec 10
An emotional night ended with a fifth consecutive defeat.
The club and supporters as well as the referee, Boro’s team and fans beautifully remembered Headphones Norm, and there was a more spirited 2nd half to cling onto.
Please click for moreThis was a big game, with a big build up to a date so important to Addicks’ fans. It ended in tragic circumstances and our number is sadly one less today.
The outpouring of love and affection by those that knew Norman Barker or simply knew of him has been both heartwarming and sad. Yet we should all take solace, and I’m sure his family do, in that when your time is up, what better place to be than in a noisy Covered End surrounded by thousands of your best friends. Many of whom rushed to preserve Norm’s life of course.
Please click for moreI’m glad that you guys, at least the ones that commented, had similar feelings to me after yesterday’s game.
I went on Charlton Life post match and there appeared a lot more pessimism, maybe that stemmed from disappointment or a sudden realization that we are sliding down the table, but I try to look for indicators and study body language, and it was a different team to the one that subsided on Tuesday night.
Please click for moreThe Addicks went down to a fourth consecutive defeat today, and that’s 11 goals conceded in a week, just one less than in all the 15 games prior.
It was better though, I felt like the spirit was back, and the first half hour lifted hopes that those first 15 games were not an apparition.
Please click for moreWhat the hell has happened. That was brutal and the players truly let Nathan Jones down tonight.
After Saturday I was expecting an aggressive, in your face, defend at all costs start and there we were 2-0 down after five minutes, and even the most optimistic knew then that it was game over.
Please click for moreA few comments on yesterday before we consign it to room 101.
That wasn’t us yesterday, it hasn’t been us, and now we have to make sure it doesn’t become us.
Please click for moreI haven’t watched a first half performance that horrible for a long time. It was startling how easy they dismantled our defence and rolled us around all over the shop in midfield.
It was only thanks to Kaminski and luck that it took them 14 minutes to score their first, and by the time they scored the 5th half an hour later, it had become like a very bad dream.
Please click for moreSynesthesia. Today’s word.
Mixed senses of disappointment this weekend as we have no game, and not waking with that nervous excitement stomach churn of what lies ahead, but also quite thankful that the day will be more relaxing.
The sometimes-enigmatic-other-half will be happier that she won’t have to attempt to read my mood tonight before we go out for dinner!
Read moreI am old enough to remember the 6-0 FA Cup shellacking at the Racecourse, and other than a league win at The Valley in the early 1980’s, Wrexham game’s have rarely provided us much if any good fortune.
Equally three of our four losses this season have come in the games coming before the international break, so the omens weren’t good especially with whispers of further injuries and illness to the squad.
Please click for moreWho doesn’t love a last minute winner.
Euphoric scenes again at The Valley tonight as Sonny Carey scored the winning goal in the fifth minute of stoppage time to make it 23 points from 14 games. We sit 5th in the table as we go to bed tonight.
Please click for moreThat was a point won today and not two lost. Despite taking the lead we were unable to take hold of the game and in the end were baying for the final whistle.
We weren’t ourselves today, definitely not the best version of ourselves, but we didn’t lose and move onto another busy week.
Please click for moreThat became very uncomfortable but it was another 3 points as we reach the first season marker sitting nicely in 9th place.
Another big crowd watched a very good first half, and then got the Addicks across the finish line to bounce back from the defeat at Preston last time out.
Please click for moreDefeat today in heavy winds but we can’t be too downhearted. These days were always going to come, but we sit top half as we go into the second international break.
It’s been a long week especially for those travelling fans who today had to beat difficult train and weather conditions, but their backing was magnificent again.
Please click for moreI think we have to be pleased with a point tonight and it was a fair result.
Derby have had an underwhelming start to the season and were under a lot of pressure to win. The only shame is that after quelling early 2nd half pressure we couldn’t build enough possession to bring back the 1st half home boos.
Please click for moreI was at The Valley today, and I was moved by that performance and how it was saluted by a pulsating stadium.
We were irresistible in that 2nd half and thoroughly deserved the win in what was possibly the best pressing display I’ve seen from us under Nathan Jones.
Please click for moreWe all would’ve taken a point beforehand, but that is a fantastic win.
It was important that we started solidly and we did, but in trademark Nathan Jones style we finished really strong and Tanto Olaofe got the winner with 89 minutes on the clock.
Please click for moreIt’s been a quiet week in our corner of South London, less so in the south of Sheffield where Chris Wilder’s return is getting all of the media attention.
We can, as Nathan Jones would say, only affect things that we can control, and after their stuffing at Ipswich a reaction was probably going to come anyway.
Please click for moreHistory always repeats itself, something always happens and it is a given in this game that Millwall will score late, and late they did.
The hurt continues and it will take a couple of days for the fog to clear and when it does it will show that we played very well and were the better team.
Please click for moreIt was quite nice watching last Monday’s transfer deadline pass without having expectations of loads of last minute signings, although whatever happened to David Datro Fofana was a slight dissapointment, if it ever was a thing. We’ll probably never know.
We’ve had so many last minute signings that have turned out to be crap at best, that it’s so much more comforting having new players in the building early in the window. Jones’ stance on loans also means we are not scrapping around in the Premier League academy barrel hoping that the next young hopeful turns out to be Conor Gallagher.
Please click for moreI think that was a warning call today. We didn’t deserve to lose that match, from 60 mins on we looked the most likely to win, but we left Loftus Road with our tail between our legs.
I think us fans need to remember the ultimate goal here. Possibly our surprise element has been exhausted, we have to be better, and we have to learn quicker but for long periods as the away side we still had the upper hand.
Please click for moreTalking Point 🗣️
The problem with these early kick off’s is that it leaves a long time for reflection. 12.30 is 7.30am here, and that’s a lot of day to wallow, sulk, or be grumpy. Just ask the missus.
Please click for moreWe were going to lose at some point, and if you’re going to lose, then lose like that.
It was another excellent display of sheer determination, aggressive pressing and quality not only matching but eclipsing our exalted opponents, but the winning goal was straight out of the Premier League and separated the two teams.
Please click for moreBack at The Valley on Saturday with another big crowd expected. Leicester have sold out their allocation. The attendance will certainly be bigger than the last time we hosted the Foxes almost exactly 12 years ago, when Yann scored against his old club.
Crazy to think that just two season’s after that Leicester won the Premier League title.
Please click for moreI really enjoyed that. Throughly deserving of a point, and perhaps could even have snatched all three as we again finished the stronger of the two sides.
Some superb individual performances all across the pitch, but it was a stoic team showing that gave the noisy travelling Addicks something to be really proud off.
Please click for moreTalking Point 🗣️
We all know it was only the first game, and there are 45 to play, but I’m still wallowing a little bit from Saturday’s win over Watford. Back to earth tomorrow though when we host Stevenage in the Carabao Cup, and whilst we hadn’t played Watford since 2015, this is our 7th meeting with Stevenage in less than three years.
Please click for moreWhat a way to win a season opener. So many trademarks from last season in that performance and it was great to see Nathan Jones push for the win in the last part of the game and not be content with a point
I was grateful that my Qatar Airways WiFi held out and the game was a joy to watch and a very noticeable step up in quality.
Please click for moreTwo more sleeps, and how are you feeling? Optimistic? Nervous? Restless?
We have to be excited don’t we. After some desperate years we all deserve that feeling. The club has laid a terrific foundation for all Addicks to have something to believe in, and that for me has always been the core principle of being a Charlton fan, and that hasn’t always been easy.
Please click for moreIt’s exciting, right?
Six years ago in the exact same position we had just convinced Jason Pearce and Jonny Williams to sign new contracts, this only after Roland Duchatelet did a u-turn over Lee Bowyer’s contract. Joe Aribo had just left and Duchatelet was behind our backs negotiating to cash in on Anfernee Djiksteel.
Please click for moreWatford at home 12.30pm opening day. Then we travel to Bristol City the following Saturday followed by Leicester back at The Valley a week later. The last game of August is a trip to Loftus Road.
Millwall at home is early (Sept 13th), we travel to The Den on Saturday, January 24th. Hopefully it will be snowing!
Please click for moreWhen the samba rhythm starts to play🎵. Still singing.
I’ve been staring at the picture of next season’s Championship clubs. A little foreboding, a lot exciting. Other than Wrexham, we have played regularly against the others since I started watching Charlton in the mid 70’s. In fact Portsmouth (116 times), Middlesbrough, Blackburn and Derby are all among the teams we have played the most in our history.
Please click for moreI’m at Gatwick waiting for my flight, which I might actually miss unless I can stop myself scrolling through videos and photos of yesterday.
A momentous day, a momentous season that due to the contrasting segments of it seemed to last forever.
Please click for moreI had no doubt that Birmingham would win today. I was at St. Andrew’s for the last game of the 1992/93 season when the Blues had to beat Charlton to stay up.
Saying the atmosphere was hostile does not do it justice and if Peter Garland’s shot had gone in instead of hitting the post I feared we would not got out alive.
Please click for moreAfter 12 years languishing outside of The Championship, 7 in League One, Portsmouth finally found the secret sauce to get themselves back in there after coming from behind to beat Barnsley tonight and are crowned L1 champions.
We’ll miss those points we usually take off our long time peers, but Pompey are a proper club, so congratulations to them and their supporters.
Please click for moreThe 2nd legs of the play-off semi-final’s begin tonight and with Sunderland, Luton and Coventry being in the mix for a Premiership place, they each offer a glimmer of hope to us disconsolate Addicks.
Please click for moreA big final day all around us in League One and in The Championship. Unsure to why we get Sunday all to ourselves.
Sheffield Wednesday were relegated a year after they really should have been as Wayne Rooney’s Derby County survived by the skin of their teeth thanks to a heartbreaking late goal for Cardiff that meant that Rotherham also dropped despite leading in Wales for so much of the game.
I had Soccer Saturday on and Paul Merson spent the whole of the first half complaining. I don’t know what sort of game he was expecting at Pride Park, but he was a little bit more present in the 2nd half, after a word from the director I guess.
Please click for moreI don’t have a lot of like for Birmingham City. I’ve been to St. Andrews numerous times and most of them have been rather unpleasant, off the field anyway. Yet I have been keeping an eye on their progress under Lee Bowyer, and today a win at ‘Wayne Rooney’s Derby’ secured their Championship safety which looked very dubious upon his arrival in mid-March.
Lee Bowyer touched on a topic many of us have highlighted as a problem today, and that is our miserable home form.
By my calculations under Bowyer at The Valley since he took over with fans in the ground the Addicks won 26 of their 46 league games that were played. That does not include play-off’s, or games this season with a small number of socially distanced fans allowed in.
I was off the radar yesterday. I think that is what the glued-to-the-election-other-half said to me when I eventually got home last night before falling asleep on the sofa.
Thanks to Benjy Nurick’s Twitter feed I did manage to follow the game and at 2-0 with us steaming forward at every opportunity and not having conceded a goal forever the game sounded a forgone conclusion with just over half an hour gone.
Spoke too soon I said to myself after Ched Evans scored twice in two minutes to bring Fleetwood level.
What a farce. The EFL covering themselves in glory again.
Now I will say we finished 2nd from bottom after 46 games and deserved our fate. You are where you are. We had our chances but blew it. Bowyer and his team got blood out of a stone and somehow managed to win 48 Championship points with a middling League One squad, a ridiculous and hugely distracting ownership saga, a long and debilitating injury list, our best player refusing to play, and a transfer embargo just one of the many behind the scenes troubles.
It’s hard to write this. Hard to take, and even harder to look into our future now.
Of course we shouldn’t have been here. Having to go to the league’s best team needing to win. We’d already blown it. When Birmingham’s scored last week I knew that. Congratulations to Luton and Barnsley. They properly stepped up when they had too, and commiserations to Wigan and their supporters. How about that bottom three f*ucked over by shysters eh?
EFL, you must be proud, and I hope Lyle Taylor and Chris Solly sleep well tonight.
Torture isn’t it? No one ever said supporting this football club was going to be easy. Ever.
When the fixtures came out over a year ago, we all collectively sighed ‘I hope we don’t have to go to Elland Road needing something?’ Well, slow forward 12 months and here we are.
Gut wrenching. 93rd minute. What a hammer blow.
If we are going to do this, then it will be the bloody hard way…. always.
Absolutely gutted tonight. One point from the last two games. Even two would have given us something to cling onto. F sake.
Strange game really to summarize. We unusually had the majority of the possession, but they had 23 shots to our 7. Phillips could be criticized for their goal, but blimey he had a brilliant game, and without him we would have not have been clinging onto a 1-0 lead into injury time. Brilliant penalty save by the way.
I was fuming after that today. It was so frustrating. Yes blame the referee, blame Lyle Taylor, blame who you want, but we are a shower in front of goal.
Three goals in nine games. How hard can we make this for ourselves?
Our last two games, no hopes, and no points, so as we were then.
Positives to move on with? We didn’t lose to Millwall in injury time, and more seriously we played very well against Brentford. The absolute form team in this division who had been brushing teams aside pre and post lockdown.
Tonight was a free hit. Brentford have been rolling over teams and for my pound, deserve promotion. Yet to be ahead for more than an hour and lose to a penalty and what looked an own goal to me is pretty sickening. The facts of the matter are though Brentford are a very impressive side and we were becoming more and more under the cosh before they won their penalty.
Bow made several changes, perhaps with an eye to Saturday, but it was good to see Jonny Williams back, and I thought he, Sam Field, Jake Forster-Caskey and Alfie Doughty all played admirably.
Every time, same old Charlton blah blah.
I write these games off. Ever since the 70’s. Give them the six points at the beginning of the season, saves all the false hope’s and let-down’s.
I had to go out for dinner at the 2nd half drink’s break. Other than the constant threat of Jed Wallace, I thought we were doing alright up until that point. The giant Smith was off as was Romeo and Jonny had just been introduced and I think we were edging it. Still wasn’t confident of course, doesn’t take a seer to work the end result out against that lot.
As we totter on the edge of administration ourselves we should have every sympathy for Wigan’s fans and players after the Latics became the first professional club in England to fall into administration during the Covid-19 crisis.
It looks to me like another case of a murky and obscure flipping of control of a football club. Our friends at the EFL look culpable again after approving the takeover just last month by an entity called New Leader Fund (NLF) from a Hong Kong operation called International Entertainment Corporation (IEC), a Cayman Islands-registered company which owns a hotel and casino in the Philippines.
A great point to bring home from Wales tonight.
Another defensive blockade and when we needed him Dillon Phillips delivered with the one big save of the night from Adomah.
The result was all the more significant as Lee Bowyer made seven changes to his line-up and changed the formation. Adam Matthews and Tomer Hemed didn’t travel due to small knocks and Sam Field and Jake Forster-Caskey started in a three-man midfield after long lay-offs.
With hotels closed in Wales it will be a day trip to Cardiff on Tuesday for Charlton in their next behind closed doors game as part of this summer’s mini-season.
Cardiff City have propelled themselves into the top six since we re-started. The old adage that every game in this league is tough is no more apparent than our next three games as we now go full steam into a rollercoaster of games until the end of this prolonged season.
Come on you Addicks.
Another resolute and energetic performance today with Darren Pratley heading the early goal from another Josh Cullen corner.
An unchanged line up from Lee Bowyer with Andre Green replacing Erhun Oztumer on the 9-man bench the only change.
The deadline for Championship clubs to re-sign players whose contracts expire June 30th has officially passed, although it looks that many are still negotiating and many clubs are keen to keep news of departures in house.
Our news of Taylor and Solly not wanting to play and David Davis refusing to return to London was hurtful, but it was early, almost 4 weeks ago. This week clubs in our division have still been working out who they can rely on, or will lose. Meanwhile Steve Gallen could concentrate on offering future starts new contracts.
A massive win with real positive early signs that Lee Bowyer has re-ignited all the character traits that we have come to admire.
I watched the game on Valley Pass and think because I was fully submerged in it didn’t really miss the crowd, although the players entering the pitch like they had come for a kickabout was very strange, only added to by the fact I had no commentary for the first few minutes. The silence was very eerie.
We were definitely second out of the blocks as Hull won a couple of early set plays, but in an unfamiliar 4-4-2 we got going with Albie Morgan at the centre of most of it.
A clean slate for Lee Bowyer’s squad this weekend. Forgotten are those not wanting to play and those that were injured pre-lockdown. Also forgotten is how bloody awful we were leading into that Hull game in March. Much worse than we were during that injury torn winless run leading up to Christmas.
The EFL meet again tomorrow, whether that’s virtually or on a beach I don’t know. Curtailment of the season is expected to be voted for in League Two, whilst a vote could go either way in League One.
Clubs have put forward varying proposals including Barnsley in our division that suggests a general amendment to regulations that no club will be relegated from a division where that division fails to conclude its normal fixtures.
Tomorrow morning Lee Bowyer welcomes his players back to Sparrows Lane to start ‘small group training.’
Bowyer sounded delighted to be able to mix with his staff and players again but there are strict protocols that have to be adhered to.
Although it’s not is it, although whether it’s the start or the middle, no one knows.
It would have been the final game of the season today. Elland Road hosting noisy and anxious hopes, dreams and tears. The final of nine games now suspended.
Unprecedented but not unexpected the Premier League and EFL have suspended all football down to the National League until April 3rd.. at the earliest.
Selfishly with all that has gone on with us this week, allowing the players to take a breather and the club to settle down a bit is much welcome, although I don’t mean to downplay the severity of the Coronavirus situation.
The third defeat in a row, with no goals scored and into the bottom three for the first time this season. This is not for the feint hearted.
At the end of the day it was another defensive blooper that saw us lose, Ben Purrington gifting the ball away in the 17th minute that ended with McNair scoring the winner.
Morning Addicks. That was a restless night’s sleep wasn’t it?
A bad, bad week up in Yorkshire for Charlton ended in capitulation and the season’s worst defeat yesterday as Karlan Grant helped himself to a couple of goals and raised anxiety levels to bursting amongst Addicks’ fans.
As gut wrenching as it was last night to concede with the last touch of the game, if we are honest we got what we deserved! Nothing.
Nothing summed up our night pretty succinctly other than Lyle Taylor’s incredible shot which hit the bar, we had to rely on Dillon Phillips to keep us level. Yet, for the sixth time this season we could not keep the ball out of our net in injury time.
Lovely. A vitally important 3 points today.
After an even first half we produced a dominant second led by captain for the day and all-round paladin Lyle Taylor who gave everything and scored twice.
One of those goals was perfection, even down to the boos from the away fans just as he hit sumptuous half volley into the far corner of the net. This after controlling a difficult ball from behind him before teeing it up to fire us into the lead.
Disappointing today. Another football for a fiver and another defeat.. that’s six in a row!
We just were not at the races, beaten by a better team who comfortably worked us out and took easy advantage in the first half and put it in cruise control for the second.
Tampa, Florida
