Aug 30
Luton Town, once our level, but our level now the same as Crewe Alexander and Accrington Stanley, have signed Tom Lockyer on a free.
Lockyer had a free transfer release clause in his contract if we were relegated. Sterling work again by the Duchatelet brain’s trust.
This is a tough run, no win in six, and no clean sheets either, and our points total is stuck in the quicksand. The squad is decimated, and now Gallagher will miss Saturday after being booked. Josh Cullen will be out until after Christmas.
We have a bigger squad this season, two players for each position etc, but it is an infliction of Duchatelet’s ownership that once again too many of these players are brought in last minute, cheaply, not fit enough or have never been fit. Or all of the above.
My next look at our new Championship opponents. Part One is here.
The long running saga of Frank Lampard leaving for Chelsea meant Derby County had to quickly re-adjust this summer. They chose Phillippe Cocu as their new manager. The Dutchman has no previous experience on British soil, but he has won the Eredivisie three times as a manager.
Nerves rattled both Portsmouth and Sunderland last night when with an eye on second place both came unstuck meaning that without kicking a ball both Luton and Barnsley were promoted.
Peterborough were two-up at Fratton Park, but then we’re hauled level. However with their own promotion push on a knife edge Posh went back in front and are now a point behind Doncaster. On Sunday Peterborough are at home to Burton and Doncaster home to Coventry.
Who one of those plays in the play-offs is all up for grabs. Even the Addicks can snatch 3rd on Sunday but Portsmouth are in pole position facing Accrington at home, although Stanley did score five last week. Sunderland have a tricky one away at Southend, who need to win.
Bow put on a brave face when talking about our promotion rivals spending in the January transfer window, but if it didn’t only highlight the budgetary disparities between us and them, it also shone a massive spotlight on differing board ambitions.
None of the clubs at the top with us are loaded with money, yet Bow’s fellow managers and Steve Gallen equivalents were all allowed to haggle and barter in the window for the betterment of their squads and Sunderland, Portsmouth, Luton and Peterborough have all come out the other end with a deeper and, on paper at least, a stronger collection of players.
Doncaster, who have one of the lowest budgets in the league, were pretty inactive in January but importantly kept John Marquis despite interest from Sunderland, and a late bid from Swansea. In demand Alfie May also signed a contract extension.
Despite being a staunch promotion rival you have to feel sorry for Luton Town fans after Nathan Jones left for Stoke City.
Addicks fans know how ambitious Jones is. Money I don’t think has ever been his drive, just the passion to work hard and improve. He left our coaching staff in 2013 to take up a role at Brighton, who were on the verge of good things. His two and a half years at Albion magnified his reputation and he took his first managerial role at Luton 3 years ago, and has had unprecedented success.
That must have been an enjoyable walk through the allotments on the way out!? Absolutely fantastic to see us come back like that in injury time. In a crazy four minutes we hit the bar twice, had one of the line, and could have won a penalty. All before Chris Solly crashed a volley low into the net through a crowd of players.
It must have been brilliant to have been in that away end as the players celebrated wildly next to them, in front of the Luton fans (photo), giving it large after they failed to give us the ball back for the preceeding corner. Ah, football eh?
The second part of my look at our League One rivals as we enter our third consecutive season under our current genius owner. I am sure he is reading this as he renews his subscription for Valley Pass.
Here was Part One of my 2018/19 League One preview, which went Accrington Stanley to Coventry City.
Congratulations to Nathan Jones on his first managerial post at Luton Town.
Jones was always destined to make the move into management and his reputation that he had built at Charlton with the U21’s has only magnified following his two and a half years at Brighton, where he once played, and was also caretaker manager for a while. Good luck to him.
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Back from a great but knackering week in Florida with work. I spent the last night of the trip with a client that owns the imposing Westin Diplomat in Hollywood north of Miami. They were very accomodating and it was a restful way to end the trip, which started in similar fashion last Sunday with a few beers with New York Addick on Ocean Drive in South Beach.
A weekend of not doing an awful lot is on the radar, although the weather here doesn’t appear to encourage doing much outside. Hopefully I can catch some of the FA Cup games on the telly, although the one I’d like to see doesn’t appear to be on.
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Luton Town 1 Charlton Athletic 3
Well that was a turn up for the books. I didn’t see that coming and the snippets I managed to watch on a feed on my computer at work didn’t put us in a good light, especially the first half giving away a lot of the ball and defending deeply but we got the goals at the right time and it is another fine away victory for Parky and the lads.
The win was all the more sweet after Parkinson picked up the Manager of the Month and Johnnie Jackson the Player award today, normally a precursor of a big fall but for once we came away from a potential banana skin with our pride intact. Parky deserves his little bit of television time tonight especially after his old boss has been hogging all the limelight today.
The Spurs game is something to look forward to, and a reminder of glory days past but there is a lot of league action before then.
The hardy few at Kenilworth Road: Addicks Diary;
CA fact: Wagstaff, Jackson and Anyinsah have scored all of our goals in this season’s FA Cup run.
Charlton Athletic 2 Luton Town 2
As tough as it is to follow Emma Jones’ commentary on BBC Radio London it sounded to me as if Luton deserved their draw yesterday afternoon and a replay adds another game to our already busy fixture list, which now sends us on the road for all but one of our next five games. Maybe not a bad thing judging by recent form!
Chicago Addick 