Apr 30
A dreadful performance to close a dreadful season. It was a fitting end.
Only an injury time Cheltenham goal meant we finished in 13th, the same as Chris Powell’s 2010/11 season ironically with the same points.
Please click for moreI guess we had this pencilled in as a potential promotion deciding fixture. As it is Portman Road becomes the finish line in a turgid season that has only been illuminated once or twice and has frankly dragged on since about February.
Yet, close to 2,000 Addicks will make the journey to Suffolk, a tremendous effort to see out the season. A crowd of almost 24,000 is expected only underlying the two club’s size and abject failure.
Please click for more🔝5️⃣. My final 2021 Top Five I’ve saved for my favourite Addicks’ matches. By my calculation we played 58 times throughout 2021 although picking five hardly evoked a rush of everlasting memories.
Thanks to Charlton TV I see more games a season now than I have ever done in 47 years of support. Even in my most active Charlton going days I probably saw 35-40 matches a season depending on cup runs…. okay 36 then 😄.
Please click for moreCharlton have been tracking Scott Fraser for a while, in fact even when he was at MK Dons rumours linked us to him.
Now at Ipswich who signed him a part of their massive summer recruitment drive for a ‘sizeable six-figure fee.’ Charlton made their first bid last week, but have had a second improved one accepted by Ipswich.
Please click for moreWhat a fantastic win and display last night from Johnnie Jackson’s Addicks. It was a hair on the back of the neck moment when Gilbey ran half the length of the field to jump onto Jacko, Jason and the rest of the coaching staff when he scored the second goal to ease any doubts and lift the roof.
Please click for moreThe first part of my League One rate the competition review guide….guide is a massive overstatement by the way, but hopefully you will stick with it.
League One is wide open this coming season, possibly only a handful of teams will have their ambitions fixed solely on survival, everyone else will either have a longing for a play-off place, expect a concerted challenge towards it or will have a vision of top two.
Please click for moreThat was pretty powderpuff wasn’t it.
The game had a bit of an ‘end of season nothing to play’ for feel to it. From us there was no acute cutting edge and we were unable to sustain any kind of passages of play involving more than three passes. Equally we weathered an unsure start where Ipswich fresh from a flea in the ear from Paul Cook started impressively.
Way to bounce back Charlton.
A great result and a great performance. A return to the steeliness desire pre-Gillingham for Bowyer’s boys, and a fine midfield performance with Morgan and Watson outstanding, the latter having his best game for us. Williams was good too.
The back five, unchanged and unflustered. I thought Adam Matthews also had his best game since returning.
We’ll push on with this even though we are two games in. For Part II we are moving south to Lincolnshire as I continue my preview of our League One competitors.
Lincoln City comfortably survived their first season in tier 3 for over 20 years and will approach this season confident of further improvement under Michael Appleton.
It is pretty much proven that pre-season friendly results have no bearing on what is expected to follow from a long season. Fitness, unity, systems is what it is all about save for the last game or two, when managers tend to put out their proposed starting line up’s. In all honesty those results are also meaningless save for a sound thrashing or a confidence-busting good result, which has to have an affect on players and coaches as they enter the opening league fixture.
Well. And how must Ipswich fans be feeling this morning?
Maybe Ipswich were poor, but no one has ever won a football game 6-1 without making the other side look poor, so beating a team from the league above so convincingly has to have a positive mental effect.
A third 0-3 home defeat in four games and any thoughts of a renaissance after two wins were squashed by an apathetic performance in front of a worryingly sparse and disinterested crowd.
This club is only going one way at the moment and it is runaway train with Ms Meire at the steering wheel and M Duchatelet in the control box. Whether the 2% Protest made any impact on the two of them I very much doubt it, but the fact that ‘Stand up for the 2%‘ posters were held aloft by at least half of the home fans, sitting amongst a sea of empty red seats was a very respectful but poignant image, one that got the message out to a broader audience and showed up Meire’s arrogance for what it is.
Congratulations to all of those that helped and supported it. It was a good start and I will write more on that in the coming days now that I am back in Bermuda and once I can shake off the hangover of another pitiful display.
Please click for more
Part II of my look at our Championship rivals. Part I is here.
Using the bookie’s predictions, the following are the 8 teams they think will be knocking on the door of the play-off’s.
Please click for more
Chicago Addick 