Mar 4
Another listless performance from Charlton and that is one win in six, and not a goal or very few actual shots on target since early in the Forest Green game, who are adrift at the bottom.
Total admiration for those Addicks who backed the team the whole game because this is all so demoralizing.
Please click for moreFollowing hot on the heels of the signing of Macauley Bonne, Coventry’s Todd Kane has signed on loan until the end of the season.
Kane and Dean Holden give their thoughts here, but also there is a bloke called Thomas Sandgaard, who appears from the abyss, and shares his broad footballing knowledge with us fans. How we have missed his opinion..
Please click for moreI do think it’s funny. We have the Sandgaard black box and we brought in ace-wheeler-dealer Andy Scott, and who do we sign? An ex-player, who we tried to sign in August and a player we have at least been in for twice previously.
Please click for moreOver promise and under deliver.
Whatever your feelings on signing Macauley Bonne, the cold facts are the club have waited 3 months after they let Conor Washington go, and 6 weeks since they sold Josh Davison to AFC Wimbledon and waited until the very last seconds of deadline day to try to sign a striker who used to play for us. Martin Sandgaard’s data analytics must be top notch.
Please click for moreCharlton sold Macauley Bonne to QPR this morning in a deal expected to be worth £2m with an added sell-on clause. He scored 11 goals for us after signing from Leyton Orient last summer.
Lee Bowyer called Bonne a project. I never felt quite sure that he was Lee’s pick, but he took the 24-year old on and Bonne was a willing pupil. That project work is still ongoing and it’ll be interesting to see how Mark Warburton further develops him.
Torture isn’t it? No one ever said supporting this football club was going to be easy. Ever.
When the fixtures came out over a year ago, we all collectively sighed ‘I hope we don’t have to go to Elland Road needing something?’ Well, slow forward 12 months and here we are.
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.
The third defeat in a row, with no goals scored and into the bottom three for the first time this season. This is not for the feint hearted.
At the end of the day it was another defensive blooper that saw us lose, Ben Purrington gifting the ball away in the 17th minute that ended with McNair scoring the winner.
Who said Santa’s work was done? A much welcomed three points won at a crackling Valley with Macauley Bonne and Alfie Doughty leading the plaudits. We conceded two again, and defensively we still have many things to work on, but that fighting spirit was there in bundles to give us all a big Boxing Day grin.
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.
One week on. Are we over it yet? Nah, me neither, even though my brain has been through an abundance of senses travelling with work in Nevada and California this past week, that final few minutes plays over and over.
The international break is an annoyance, even though I noticed that England qualified for next year’s Euro tour. Shocking to hear Joe Gomez getting booed too, some people are such idiotic lemmings.
I love this team, they really don’t give a flying do they? They will go toe to toe with anybody.
What an immense couple of games, and it would have been mortifying to walk away again with another fully undeserved defeat.
West Brom are a very good side, and were very good going forward on the counter, yet our team of bandaged up warriors stood strong and once again made their mark on this great league. With 9 men injured and Leko unavailable, we had a subs bench with four academy players on it, yet, again Bowyer was able to put out a team and strategy onto the pitch that gave our opponents a real headache all afternoon.. a bit like our magnificent noisy fans behind the goal.
Not sure what to think about that. Watching was quite intense, but looking back the game was split into intervals. One thing is for sure we did not deserve to lose.
I thought the first half hour we imposed ourselves on the game excellently with Sam Field as the midfield pivot the real catalyst for our high pressing driving game. We held the ball well and had some good forward moments in the 1st half without really threatening, but nor did they.
Losing first Field and then JFC, now in an even more alien position of left-back, was a killer. You could tell it shook us. The changes weren’t necessarily drastic although I don’t like Solly at left back and Pratley was clearly being saved for Saturday, but it hit our flow and I’m sure Bowyer was pleased to get them back to the changing room.
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.
Chicago Addick 