Jun 7
Whereas Lyle Taylor is never slow in publicly making his feelings clear, sensibly or non-sensical, Chris Solly throughout his career has always kept one’s counsel.
Lost in the hand wringing and abomination of Taylor’s decision not to play for us again, Solly slunk away to a quiet corner after making his even more improbable choice.
Lyle Taylor has told Lee Bowyer that he won’t play for Charlton again when play resumes. His contract expires on June 30th, and does not want to risk injury and banish any lucrative summer move.
It’s hard to blame Taylor, or any player that doesn’t want to take the risk, but anyone that has seen Lyle’s recent interviews will have seen him disillusioned and infuriated about how the club’ owners have treated him.
Lyle Taylor has never been one to hide his true feelings. Rightly he stepped away from social media after taking himself a little too seriously, although he couldn’t resist the odd barb, which has kept us amused during lockdown like the photo above of his namesake’s Range Rover dealership just after Matt Southall and his partner had their cars impounded.
Taylor is extremely likeable, articulate, grounded and an all round good bloke. Matt Southall is neither of those things.
Lovely. A vitally important 3 points today.
After an even first half we produced a dominant second led by captain for the day and all-round paladin Lyle Taylor who gave everything and scored twice.
One of those goals was perfection, even down to the boos from the away fans just as he hit sumptuous half volley into the far corner of the net. This after controlling a difficult ball from behind him before teeing it up to fire us into the lead.
Again, I’m not too au fait with the game yesterday as I was tied to a seat in a big conference hall resorting to checking my phone. But, that was a fantastic result. A proper Curbs’ performance that one.
Lyle Taylor, Sam Field and Josh Cullen back in the match day squad for Fulham. Sorry about the clickbait, but everyone’s getting a bit needy around here. 🤷♂️
Zero transfer news. Sorry. Log off now if you have to. Maybe the midfielder from Rangers. Less substantiated are Lockyer’s ex-team mates from Bristol Rovers. Striker Johnson Clarke Harris and midfielder Ollie Clarke who took over the armband from our Welshman. Then there’s the soap opera that is becoming Marcus Maddison.
And that’s about that on the jungle drums but Gallen and Bowyer have always done a very good job of keeping targets and potential signings very close to their chest. Andre Green being the most recent example.
Sounds as if we should steal ourselves for seeing the last of Lyle Taylor. ESI have had their contract offer to the 29-year old striker turned down and will now listen to offers for him. Hopefully he is moved on quickly giving time for Gallen and Bowyer to replace him.
The Taylor story has rumbled on too far for me to be shocked, or even disappointed. This is modern football I’m afraid, it’s hard to begrudge him a final payday and possibly a Premier League opportunity. We ourselves only have him because he did similar at Wimbledon, in fact there’s nothing to say Taylor may well wait at The Valley for his contract to expire and move as a free agent in the summer.
If a week ago a 2-2 draw felt like a loss, then yesterday’s felt like victory. It was a roller coaster game to watch for the close to 3,000 Addicks and for 20 first half minutes most of them would’ve wished they were Christmas shopping.
Defensively we were all over the shop. Rangers scored early after Sarr sliced a clearance directly into the path of Cameron. After that it could and should have been at least two or three more. Dillon Phillips kept us in it, and one save when Bermudian Nahki Wells was through on goal with only another QPR anywhere near him was beyond belief.
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.
That was about as far removed from a Lee Bowyer’s team performance as possible. It was awful, and my heart goes out to the brave 500 or so Addicks who wasted a day if not longer going up there to watch it. Including Matt Southall. Legends all.
Great news, hearty good news in fact from Macauley Bonne who has been declared 100% fit and well to carry on playing after undergoing cardiac tests.
Bonne pulled out of the Zimbabwe squad after a ‘heart scare’ following what are regular cardiac screenings.
A club statement said: “The results of these investigations have been discussed with the sports cardiologist and the player will continue to play and train as normal. The club will continue to regularly screen his heart as recommended, as we do with all our players from U15 through to the first team.” Great news.
Not a six-pointer or a crucially must-win game but an important one nonetheless as we see how Lee Bowyer’s team can bounce back from last weekend’s first defeat.
Lyle Taylor’s knee injury has been described to similar to one that Patrick Bauer suffered last season. So no surgery but rest, time in a brace and then strengthening and fitness recovery. Bauer was out for 9 weeks. Meanwhile Lyle can dedicate his time to Cancer Research awareness. It’s a great cause, one close to my heart, and the club has dedicated the Derby home game on October 19th. Sadly he won’t be playing.
An unusual feeling yesterday. We simply haven’t been used to losing, but none of us expected that feeling to last well into September. We had to get beat some time and Taylor-less we now have to show how much we belong in this division in the coming weeks.
Yesterday I thought was fraught with classic banana skins. Possibly for the first time this season we were favourites to win a league game, the biggest regular home league attendance for about four seasons, and the 100th Valley birthday with loads of pomp and VIP guests. Probably why I was anxious beforehand.
Social media was alight like a soggy firework yesterday as stories of Lyle Taylor being injured ripped through us. There was even photos taken of him and his blonde locks struggling on crutches at Ebbsfleet train station.
Taylor captained and played the full 90 minutes in Montserrat’s 2-1 win over the Dominican Republic on Saturday, but he was missing from their draw last night against St Lucia. Taylor obviously travelled home before that game. The journey back from Montserrat includes either a boat or an eight-seater light aircraft back to Antigua before boarding a flight to London. That must have been a painful journey.
Again, if someone had told us a year ago, even in the middle of the summer, that we’d be gutted not to beat Nottingham Forest in The Championship, then we’d be left with no choice but to unravel that ‘Liar’ banner again.
A sublime first half performance that had Addicks salivating at The Valley and at home sadly couldn’t be sustained, as Forest equalized late to grab a point.
Bowyer made a number of changes as Erhun Oztumer and Sam Field made league debuts and Naby Sarr took Jason Pearce’s place as Bow again showed he is not afraid to make changes depending on the opposition. Deji Oshilaja took Solly’s place at right back and Lyle Taylor was given the armband.
Chicago Addick 