Apr 6
Apologies to those of you that get to games a lot more frequently than me, it was the law of sods that meant I witnessed our worst performance since December in my first game in SE7 for a fair while.
However the comeback was stirring and a point was valuable from a game we would’ve lost on most others occasions in recent years.
Please click for moreA dismal game that could have been ruined by the weather, but watching Charlton it is hard to tell these days.
It was better than Tuesday, but that is a very low bar, although reverting to a back three and two wing backs meant at least we couldn’t just pump it long, and they did try to pass it.
Plese click for moreThe first of the unwantables has left the club. Signed two years ago, we never saw anything like the best of the deep-lying midfielder who had played over 200 games before he joined us.
McGrandles leaves us after playing just 19 times in two seasons.
Please click for moreI’ve had time to dwell on tonight’s game, other wise known as three-quarters of a bottle of wine!
I want to look at the positives and I was encouraged more so by Jones’ interview afterwards than the actual performance that was overall still highly questionable.
Please click for moreThat wasn’t even a half, it was about a 1/5th of game, the rest was a proper disappointment.
Luckily I was on a flight from Ft Lauderdale to Newark, so didn’t have to suffer it.
Please click for moreCharlton Athletic are delighted to confirm the appointment of Richard O’Donnell as Men’s First-Team Coach. (more)
O’Donnell has worked with Michael Appleton at Lincoln and Blackpool alongside David Kerslake.
Michael Appleton showed all the unruffled experience of someone that has managed over 420 games in his press conference today. There were a range of journo’s firing questions at the new Charlton head coach and I thought he handled it well.
Appleton said we have to hit the ground running, but Saturday brings a tough initiation with them top of L1 and with a renowned robust playing style representative of the bloke on the sidelines, and they don’t lose much at Broadhall Way either.
Please click for moreAn important win. The Portsmouth result would have meant nothing unless we followed it up today.
We deserved the win, but true to form we somehow almost blew it at the end. As the weather deteriorated so did our confidence and Lincoln came within inches of equalizing as we played an unexplainable 9 minutes of injury time.
Please click for moreAnother draw, and a clean sheet. That was the only positive to take from a dreadful game.
Sat watching emotionless, I realized that this is what we are. Bottom half of the 3rd Division playing our part in desperately boring games. Stinking refereeing, stinking football. One shot on goal each. Boom 💥
Please click for moreIs tomorrow a must win? Game 12 of the season.
Losing or in our case drawing is a habit. We couldn’t even hang on in the Pizza Cup on Tuesday. I was needlessly annoyed after the game, and despite what Scott Marshall said this was not a youthful team, and it was shocking that after dominating we still lost to a team 3rd bottom of L2 with just one win all season.
Please click for moreAlex Gilbey has a few suitors as he decides, or more likely Ben Garner decides if the midfielder’s future is away from The Valley.
I suspect it will be demand of the owner that Garner moves one on from his first team squad to make room for a replacement, likely to be a left-sided centre-half I’m led to believe.
Please click for moreA surprise late signing tonight when not long after the club unveiled it’s new website, the first news article which looked like a test page, announced a new signing.
That is 26-year old midfield playmaker Conor McGrandles. Falkirk born McGrandles turned down a new contract with Lincoln City and in a ‘Dale Stephens move’ signed a three-year contract with Charlton after declaring he was homesick.
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 moreNext up Part II of my look at our League One rivals and those sides that the bookies think will be challenging for a play-off spot.
Please click for moreSo in this most forlorn of all season’s, when our home record resembles desperate relegation years, tonight the Addicks stretched out the fun and anticipation to the final game of the season by managing to beat 3rd placed Lincoln City 3-1.
Charlton Athletic, the grandmasters of kicking you in the teeth, now face champions Hull on Sunday when a win combined with not a win for both Portsmouth or Oxford will take us into the play-off’s.
Please click for moreOur game next Tuesday at home to Lincoln City has been postponed due a Covid outbreak. The Imps were forced to close their training ground and had already called off their home game against MK Dons tomorrow.
That’s the third game we’ve seen postponed due to Covid, and none called off by us, despite some our own players contacting it. Interesting that their request coincides with a bad run of form.
The most offside goal ever and a dreadful 2nd half performance led us to another defeat today and gave Lincoln a deserved win.
Thomas Sandgaard’s talk of Europe looks quite the ambition. Baby steps are required along with the stability Sandgaard will provide plus hopefully a few more much needed players that will give us a chance in this division.
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.
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