Mar 2
I am on a self imposed social media ban. The negativity is caustic. Anyways it was bought to my attention that Albie Morgan has come under criticism for his ‘liking’ Karlan Grant’s post gloriously celebrating Huddersfield’s 4-0 win on Saturday.
I always thought of Morgan older than his years, but publicly approving to Grant’s finger to lips action was rather stupid. He has since unliked what he liked, so guess that’s okay.
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.
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?
Seems as Karlan Grant wasn’t the only person on his way out at the ABAX today as Posh’s Steve Evans also got his marching orders after the game. Posh have won just 3 games since October.
On paper a draw away at fellow promotion rivals is a good point but we dominated proceedings in the 2nd half and Grant’s poor penalty ultimately cost us 3 crucial points.
According to the South London Press. Karlan Grant will sign for Huddersfield this week. Selling your top scorer just before the transfer window with the club in it’s best promotion position since we were relegated. What a surprise!
Grant played today, which on the basis of he not training yesterday, was a surprise. And of course he signs off by missing a penalty at Peterborough and prevented us picking up 3 massive points.
Don’t you love the transfer window? Addicks everywhere pace around the room crossing each day of January off as the month passes slower and slower, whilst the crackpot owner sits in his bunker stroking his cat like a yellow-toothed Blofeld.
Lee Bowyer, as honest as ever today, said the threat that Karlan Grant leaves this month is very real. Huddersfield Town, 10 points adrift of safety in the Premier League, are willing to spend big on signing Grant. West Brom, Middlesbrough, Brentford and Rangers are all keeping tabs on the 21-year old as well, who a year ago was pushed out on loan to Crawley Town.
That game had it all. Well only after the 82nd minute.
We didn’t play well, and were unable to get any luck from Stanley’s big back four. The game descended into a niggle contest in the last half hour and with 10 minutes to go a mass brawl followed an Addicks corner. No one seemed to know who the guilty and innocent parties were, but one of the lino’s called it and the referee sent off Stanley keeper Maxted and Lyle Taylor, who from what I have seen and heard, spent the whole incident face down on the floor.
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 very nice win today against one of the most consistent performers in this division. Charlton attacked with real pace and purpose and two goals from Karlan Grant gave us our first win in four and inflicted defeat on Barnsley for only the second time this season.
I was following along from Florida, and the result never seemed in doubt with the returning Bielik strengthening our back four and our midfield excelling doing both the pretty and ugly stuff with Josh Cullen at the centre of it all.
23 shots on goal and 16 corners as the Addicks’ perseverance eventually paid dividends yesterday as we stretched our impressive run. I was following the match at Miami airport and from what I could make out, our midfielders were excellent 2nd half led by Reeves and Aribo as we pushed and pushed for a winner and didn’t take the option of just lumping it.
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.
After what has seen like a length of a James Cook expedition the Aussies are apparently finally coming. We have seen plenty of false dawns but word is that next week we may eventually get rid of the Belgian poison and have new owners.
According to the sage Richard Murray there were two bids accepted. One was obviously the Aussies, and the other may have been an Arab consortium, or was it English or was it the Scots, and someone said today there was some American interest. Who the hell knows, except that we finally rid ourselves of Roland Duchatelet.
Probably to help balance the wage bill a little 20-year old Karlan-Ahearne Grant went on loan to Crawley today for the rest of the season.
With Mavididi, Kaikai and Zyro, KAG was expendable and a run in a lower division will hopefully see him find his feet, and possibly his level. Harry Kewell’s Crawley are on a good run and have moved to 7 points off the play-off’s and play at lowly Chesterfield tomorrow.
Unified..
A strong and unified performance tonight at the league leaders. In the wider context of our previous form, it was an excellent and well deserved point on the road which can provide a platform that takes us deep into the new year. Robinson and the players have to remain focused, particularly the manager, whilst all around them takeover fever has set in.
The manager has been rightly criticized recently due to his coaching, but he too should take plenty of credit tonight along with the back four. Konsa shined in a couple of positions and Jacko led, of course, by example.
90+4 mins..
A storming comeback should not be sniffed at and can often be a catalyst for a good run, but it should not hide the fact that this was a poor performance from Charlton last night. Defensively it sounded as if we were all over the place, with Bauer particularly poor, and we should have already been behind before Posh scored their opener.
Chicago Addick 