Jan 24
22-year old Josh Davison has moved to Swindon Town on loan for the remainder of the season to help the Robins’ challenge for promotion from League Two. A certain Welshman called Williams is already at the County Ground.
Please click for moreThose little tight turns, that scurry of pace with the ball at his feet, the tumbling over under the slightest challenge, the lung-bursting I really don’t want to do this chasing back, the goal at Portsmouth, the ginger beard, the Play-Off Final, that massive smile. We’ll miss you Jonny.
With a miserable weekend averted due to the postponement of the game yesterday 😉, we now wait for tomorrow to pass to see how this season’s January transfer window ends.
The addition of Ronnie Schwartz, Liam Millar and Jayden Stockley has immeasurably improived the squad this January. Yet it is still light, especially wide with the loss of Doughty and Smyth. So I’m expecting a bit of action tomorrow.
That was a much better feeling wasn’t it?
It was so enjoyable to watch us attack like that in the 2nd half. We played with great tempo, got the ball out wide quickly, and into the box often. We looked really dangerous everytime we got into their final third and all in front of a noisy Covered End.
Something’s not right is it?
There’s no need to put pressure on ourselves, there are 31 games left and we sit nicely placed in the table, but out of the sunshine before the international break, a big dark cloud has settled over us. Will it pass as a rain shower or are big claps of thunder and and flashes of lightning coming?
A statement sending victory that one.
The tactics, game plan and the game management spot on. A magnificent defensive display again even with a makeshift back four, which became even more makeshift when Akin Famewo left the field with quarter of an hour left.
Portsmouth on the back of a very good run themselves presented our biggest challenge to date, and although we started slow, we grew into the game with the midfield four of Pratley, Shinnie, Forster-Caskey and Williams peerless, individually and as a collective.
Johnny Williams has followed Jake Forster-Caskey in committing to stay for the last year of his contract.
Williams could be the best player in League One. He could also be a drain on resources kicking around the medical room with the only playing statistic he leads is that of the most fouls won.
For Willians in the current environment there is no financial downside, but he must harbour hopes of playing for Wales and at a higher level. Assume he thinks he can do that with us.
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.
Sounds as if another West Brom loanee will miss the rest of the season. Sam Field’s knee injury has suffered complications and after seeing a specialist this week he will, like Jonathan Leko, spend the remainder of the season rehabilitating back at the Hawthorns.
No surprise unfortunately as we whimpered out of the cup again, but with obvious mitigating circumstances as an extraordinary young Addicks team that included a 16-year old lost to a far more experienced West Brom side.
Chris Brunt, Gareth Barry and Charlie Austin alone have played more than 1,600 games between them. Barry making his professional debut before seven of our lot were even born!
Rich Cawley was full of joys of the season this morning as he announced that both Jonny Williams and Sam Field have suffered setbacks in their returns from injury.
Both were expected to be on the bench on Saturday at Loftus Road, but Williams has tweaked his hamstring and Field likewise his knee during a full training session at West Brom, his last one before he was to drive back down to SE7. Happy bloody Christmas.
Still sat in my kitchen seething after watching that. All kinds of thoughts pinging around my head.
However Lee Bowyer has confirmed that Jonny Williams had an operation on his knee and will be out for “a couple of months.”
I wrote the other day that it’s nigh on impossible to guess how we will line up in games. Bow said yesterday that it was the first time the team had played to that formation. It looked like (from watching on Valley Pass) that we were 5-4-1 with Solly and JFC advanced wing backs and a flat midfield. That put a lot of trust in Bonne, but he did not disappoint, despite the fact a year ago he was playing in a FA Cup qualifying tie at Maidstone.
Whilst Jacko and Marsh are drilling the players on set-pieces, Bowyer must spend hours in a room studying opponent’s strengths and weaknesses. Derby and Phillipe Cocu are no slouches but yesterday we picked them off at a corner and targeted the £10m Krystian Bielik. Teams appear to be obsessed in playing out from the back pedestrian like believing they are playing for Man City.
It’s great this division isn’t it? So proud of the boys today who fully deserved their point in front of the cameras in which Scott Minto, Lyle Taylor and Chris Powell also proudly watched on.
Fulham probably have the best roster of players in the league, and in a space of a week we have met three of the biggest promotion contenders, and we have ended it with our heads held high.
The signing of Jonny Williams yesterday was a huge boost. Williams is clearly an infectious and popular character, and the strength of team and group over individuals is paramount for Bowyer, and the Welshman is a key signing.
Williams only played 19 games for us after his sensible for both parties short-term signing at the beginning of January, but he affected games on many occasions, no more so than at Wembley, when his 71st minute appearance turned the tide our way.
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.
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.
Allez, allez, allez.
A consummate performance yesterday in Salop, the scene of not so fond memories at the end of last season. Since then for Shrewsbury’s part they’ve had their squad and management team ripped apart and have had two managers since. Meanwhile we look much better prepared for promotion 7 months on, and the shoe was on the other foot yesterday as we controlled the game, as they did then.
In May Karlan Grant was at Crawley and Lyle Taylor was a figment of Lee Bowyer’s imagination, but yesterday up front together they caused havoc amongst Shrewsbury’s back line, which was one of the Shrews’ assets last season. Grant could have scored four, but his pace was a constant menace. And it was a sign of his confidence that he stepped up for the penalty and struck it with such aplomb.
A 6-month deal seems smart. It means Jonny Williams actually becomes our player as opposed to someone else’s. We’re not just the vehicle that gets him fit or puts him in the shop window. In the summer we will be in the box seat to keep him depending on how both parties get on and it gives Williams a platform to showcase his talents, and importantly from Charlton’s perspective if the Welshman breaks down again then we are not paying him for years to come.
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.
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
