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POST-MATCH THREAD: Portsmouth vs Charlton Athletic - Monday 29th December 2025 - 7:45pm Kick-Off
Comments
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This season was always going to be tough we have too many players from last seasons squad who are not good enough for the championship but nothing we can do about that overnight. I still think we will be ok this season and manage to stay up. Hopefully over the next 3/4 windows we gradually strengthen and build a sustainable squad9
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We will definitely be better than we are now, just with players returning but hopefully also with January additions. Our games against Pompey and Oxford to me showed we are a better team than them both, even though we aren’t near full strength, and that will show over the remainder of the seasonAthletico Charlton said:I actually feel quite positive this morning, for. Few reasons:
- Despite the result, Portsmouth were awful, if they don't strengthen in Jan, they won't be picking up loads of points. See Oxford for this too.
- gutting to lose at the end of course and our football was attritional but it was better than ai have seen recently
- big if, but if they stay fit, Burke, Bell and Jones +and Ramsey when back), is a very good, solid base to start.
- at least the end was entertaining. Have to admit when we equalised, I was on my chair singing away, when we conceded I just laughed at the nonsense of it all. I haven't been entertained at our games for some weeks now and l, ultimately football is in the entertainment business.
- we are still 5 points clear of relegation and I would have taken that all day long at the end of 2025 had I been offered at the start of the season.
Over to the board, Chapple and Jones to bring in the right reinforcements now.6 -
I don’t see established Championship players around their peak as realistic targets given the fees and wages they’d cost.charltonbob said:Scoham said:Lost my post in the mix up with the two post match threads.
Won’t bother writing it all again other than that we need to improve in possession and going forward. JRC looks like he can be part of that, and we need some good attacking footballers to join in January.
Huge transfer window ahead for NJ and the ownership.Problem is, even if the ownership are willing to throw some money at it no one in this Division are going to sell decent players to us & that is what we need some decent Championship players. Having said that if we're just going to play hoof it & hope who's going to want to come here ?
It’s no coincidence our Championship summer signings came from Luton who were relegated and unlikely to pay big wages, JRC who came through Blackburn’s academy so wouldn’t have been earning a huge amount and Kelman who QPR signed from Southend as a teenager.
More likely we’ll sign older players out of favour, (loans with us paying a % of their wages?), younger players who haven’t quite broken through or those stepping up a level.11 -
OK. Then one of those two needs to be connected to the stadium clock, so we can all see what the ref regards as time added on. In play. For transparency, so that we dont have fans and managers in post match saying “I dont know where he got x minutesfenaddick said:
They don’t keep it in their head. They have two watches, one that keeps track of stoppages and one that is the match clockPragueAddick said:
Thanks for that. It's noticeable that e.g with substitutions, it sheds no light on whether it is a fixed 30 seconds per sub - as ex-pros like Steve Brown think is the case, but are not actually sure. How come even someone like him cannot get definitive answers?The Red Robin said:A quick Google:
Referees are tasked with carefully tracking all instances that take time away from continuous gameplay. These include but are not limited to:
- Player injuries and their treatment on the field
- Substitutions, which require players to leave and enter the field
- Delays caused by goal celebrations
- Time-wasting tactics, such as delaying restarts or excessive delays in throwing the ball back into play
- Disciplinary actions like yellow and red cards that momentarily pause the action
- VAR (Video Assistant Referee) interventions and replays that can cause stoppages
Then when you look at that list, you wonder how a ref can be expected to keep all that lot in his head. Have they (the FA) never heard of the proven fact that unnecessarily using your brain as a memory bank in your work situation negatively affects your mental ability to optimally perform your tasks?.
This is about relieving refs of a tedious mechanical task, and above all providing transparency for the (brace yourselves) paying customers.
But of course I'm only going on about this to take my mind off the fiasco. 😉
from”. But i would still prefer it if another official was given this responsibility, share the burden of accountabilty.2 -
Sounds a perfectly simple solution to an age old problem, but probably far too complicated for the FA to comprehend though...PragueAddick said:
OK. Then one of those two needs to be connected to the stadium clock, so we can all see what the ref regards as time added on. In play. For transparency, so that we dont have fans and managers in post match saying “I dont know where he got x minutesfenaddick said:
They don’t keep it in their head. They have two watches, one that keeps track of stoppages and one that is the match clockPragueAddick said:
Thanks for that. It's noticeable that e.g with substitutions, it sheds no light on whether it is a fixed 30 seconds per sub - as ex-pros like Steve Brown think is the case, but are not actually sure. How come even someone like him cannot get definitive answers?The Red Robin said:A quick Google:
Referees are tasked with carefully tracking all instances that take time away from continuous gameplay. These include but are not limited to:
- Player injuries and their treatment on the field
- Substitutions, which require players to leave and enter the field
- Delays caused by goal celebrations
- Time-wasting tactics, such as delaying restarts or excessive delays in throwing the ball back into play
- Disciplinary actions like yellow and red cards that momentarily pause the action
- VAR (Video Assistant Referee) interventions and replays that can cause stoppages
Then when you look at that list, you wonder how a ref can be expected to keep all that lot in his head. Have they (the FA) never heard of the proven fact that unnecessarily using your brain as a memory bank in your work situation negatively affects your mental ability to optimally perform your tasks?.
This is about relieving refs of a tedious mechanical task, and above all providing transparency for the (brace yourselves) paying customers.
But of course I'm only going on about this to take my mind off the fiasco. 😉
from”. But i would still prefer it if another official was given this responsibility, share the burden of accountabilty.1 -
They do in the NFL. That said, I’m sure any manager can ask the fourth official during the game where the time has come from. Or the ref afterwards.PragueAddick said:
OK. Then one of those two needs to be connected to the stadium clock, so we can all see what the ref regards as time added on. In play. For transparency, so that we dont have fans and managers in post match saying “I dont know where he got x minutesfenaddick said:
They don’t keep it in their head. They have two watches, one that keeps track of stoppages and one that is the match clockPragueAddick said:
Thanks for that. It's noticeable that e.g with substitutions, it sheds no light on whether it is a fixed 30 seconds per sub - as ex-pros like Steve Brown think is the case, but are not actually sure. How come even someone like him cannot get definitive answers?The Red Robin said:A quick Google:
Referees are tasked with carefully tracking all instances that take time away from continuous gameplay. These include but are not limited to:
- Player injuries and their treatment on the field
- Substitutions, which require players to leave and enter the field
- Delays caused by goal celebrations
- Time-wasting tactics, such as delaying restarts or excessive delays in throwing the ball back into play
- Disciplinary actions like yellow and red cards that momentarily pause the action
- VAR (Video Assistant Referee) interventions and replays that can cause stoppages
Then when you look at that list, you wonder how a ref can be expected to keep all that lot in his head. Have they (the FA) never heard of the proven fact that unnecessarily using your brain as a memory bank in your work situation negatively affects your mental ability to optimally perform your tasks?.
This is about relieving refs of a tedious mechanical task, and above all providing transparency for the (brace yourselves) paying customers.
But of course I'm only going on about this to take my mind off the fiasco. 😉
from”. But i would still prefer it if another official was given this responsibility, share the burden of accountabilty.0 -
It was better than Norwich, but given the fact that we stunk to high heaven in that game, that is not really praise.
Portsmouth were awful and we were a bit better.
Our attacking threat is woeful. I keep saying it, we are so one dimensional in the attacking 3rd it is criminal. We bang the ball forward and hope to pick up a second ball - if you don’t have a striker capable of bullying defenders and holding the ball up, that won’t work in League One let alone the Championship.
Big decisions to make in January. I have already said it, but will say it again, there are a number of squad members who haven’t been able to make the step up and are showing no signs that they will do.
As a minimum we need genuine wing backs if Jones is sticking with 5-3-2, we need athleticism and creativity in midfield and a proper target man. Ideally we would have a wild card striker option as well.
As for the winning goal last night. Utterly inexcusable, the players, like most fans seemed to assume that the clown with the whistle was going to blow up as soon as Portsmouth kicked off. As a collective the team switched off completely. Piss poor initial header, zero pressure on the edge of the box and I need to see it again, but Kaminski seemed to go down in installments.
I have a big issue with the timing of the subs as well. 84 mins? We had Bell, Burke and Kelman coming back from injury and Berry and JRC who have played no football at all - as soon as Portsmouth went with fresh legs we should have been considering our own changes.I don’t understand not having Anderson on the bench and equally I cannot fathom the treatment of Apter after he played well against Oxford.
We keep being told that it will be fine when we get our players back and play the teams around us……not playing out that way at the moment.
Having some money to spend and using the loan market in January is key to us staying up.6 -
We're on a poor run and i don't see it getting any better on NYD, but the reality is at the halfway point we are 5 points clear of relegation with a game in hand. I think we'd have all taken that at the start of the season.
We need to move fast in the January window though, we can't be stringing things out til deadline day to bring in the players we need. I fully accept that is easier said than done though.10 -
My concern with being 5 points clear + game in hand is that we're in such free fall at the moment, it won't take long for that gap to close unless something changes dramatically. We probably need another 23 points which should be doable in theory but 4 in the last 27 is alarmingChris_from_Sidcup said:We're on a poor run and i don't see it getting any better on NYD, but the reality is at the halfway point we are 5 points clear of relegation with a game in hand. I think we'd have all taken that at the start of the season.
We need to move fast in the January window though, we can't be stringing things out til deadline day to bring in the players we need. I fully accept that is easier said than done though.5 -
I think confidence or lack of it is the biggest issue now. We look back to the start of the season and we were stopping opponents creating. We have improved in that respect recently but still have lapses which cost us. We know we can improve on that from what we have seen already this season but I think that is where the confidence comes in.0
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What’s annoying is it would be a hilariously Nathan Jones thing to now go and beat Coventry, but that 3 points would still be worth less than if we’d got them off Portsmouth. Losing to your relegation rivals is just not something you can afford to do and not really something I expect from a Jones team.10
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On last night's showing it honestly wouldn't surprise me if we had more wong'uns at games now than Millwall. The amount of geared-up grim-looking inbreds was off the scale. A scrap between ours behind the goal had to be broken up then another nearly broke out. All ready to boil over. Been getting more and more over the years, as oohaah says: the c**t-filter appears to have broken down somewhat.oohaahmortimer said:Mrs and petrolhead got back half hour ago , she said there was coked up pissed wallys standing in front few rows who were a pain and it was as bad as Birmingham away for the fuckedupness of our support .
She said there were loads of envelopes with the duplicated tickets when she got hers , there’s too many for them all to have gone missing in the post , I think our ticket office does as good as it can but it’s basically fucking shit, much like our team !
To top it all that viral video in the corner features your archetypal trainspotter weirdo Charlton types - and you don't get anything of the scenes and sense of celebration from being in the thick of the main throng once the equaliser went in. Or the disbelief not long after. Why the fuck did that even get uploaded?! We're the bloody laughing stock at the moment - unforgivable the team simply switched off and waited for the final whistle.
FFS
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I'm not sure about this - Kelman has proved he can score goals with his former club. Godden has been a huge loss as he can score goals and also link with the midfield. We just need a midfield player who can get stuck in AND pick a decent pass. Otherwise our strikers are on a hiding to nothing.shirty5 said:Our two top league goal scorers are both midfielders with 5 and 3 goals respectively (Both on the bench last night) and we have not scored 2 goals in a league game since the away win over 2 months ago v Ipswich
We don’t have the quality up front and the killer instinct that is required at this level. That was an opposition there for the taking last night but we don’t have the personnel to be clinical enough in front of goal.9 -
clearly our players all thought that as soon as Pompey kicked off that the ref would literally blow his whistle straight away (they weren't alone as I also thought that) - he didn't, ball goes back to their CB who launches it forward and we are all over the place.ForeverAddickted said:I was annoyed by the fact that the referee didnt blow his whistle after the equaliser, thought it would have been justified punishment for the Pompey time wasting, that was an emotional reaction though and said even when the board went up that 5-mins seems very lenient towards Portsmouth.
amateur from us to not be reset properly for the restart and I bet Jones will highlight that and it won't happen again
play till the final whistle....10 -
Interestingly, out of the 41 sets of player marks submitted so far, only one person has given Conor Coventry a higher score than MoM Rankin-Costello... Who could it be?
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In League 1, seems you can't just roll the ball in the direction of the goal in this division which is what we do a lot.boggzy said:
I'm not sure about this - Kelman has proved he can score goals with his former club. Godden has been a huge loss as he can score goals and also link with the midfield. We just need a midfield player who can get stuck in AND pick a decent pass. Otherwise our strikers are on a hiding to nothing.shirty5 said:Our two top league goal scorers are both midfielders with 5 and 3 goals respectively (Both on the bench last night) and we have not scored 2 goals in a league game since the away win over 2 months ago v Ipswich
We don’t have the quality up front and the killer instinct that is required at this level. That was an opposition there for the taking last night but we don’t have the personnel to be clinical enough in front of goal.1 -
Mrs Coventry...🤔Chunes said:Interestingly, out of the 41 sets of player marks submitted so far, only one person has given Conor Coventry a higher score than MoM Rankin-Costello... Who could it be?2 -
Yes - even if we were still on 27 points, we’d be better off if two of our wins had been against Norwich and Pompey, in terms of how far ahead of those two we are.Garrymanilow said:What’s annoying is it would be a hilariously Nathan Jones thing to now go and beat Coventry, but that 3 points would still be worth less than if we’d got them off Portsmouth. Losing to your relegation rivals is just not something you can afford to do and not really something I expect from a Jones team.3 -
They were both pretty good, could have broken either way :PChunes said:Interestingly, out of the 41 sets of player marks submitted so far, only one person has given Conor Coventry a higher score than MoM Rankin-Costello... Who could it be?
I docked JRC a tiny bit for his final ball/finishing, he was very good otherwise4 -
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On reflection, I'm just glad we managed to get those points when we did earlier in the season - because right now, without those points, we'd be looking up at everyone except for Sheff Wed. With their woes, that gave us the out of the fact that we'd only need two sides worse than us this season. Still think that will be Oxford and another, but right now, it feels like somewhat of a dice roll as to whether this will be us or any of the others under about 17th. The league is completely unpredictable and it will go to the wire for us again, almost certainly. Even at best, it feels like safety with a few weeks to spare might be a pretty crazy bet.
Yesterday was what it was. Yet again highlighting how certain players switch off defensively (for both of their goals) and how our "it's just about tolerable if you get any points" NJ anti-football leads to a real lack of chance generation. Defensively, Gillesphey isn't up to the level at all and is only in the team from necessity. The double commit with Jones for the header for the goal is an absolute horror, and honestly, I'd rather have Gough playing instead. Even with a joke of a referee that gave us absolutely nothing, we carved out the equaliser, only to throw away with a lack of concentration to the final minute. This league highlights our frailties in the worst way possible in this area.
I've already written at length about how I feel NJ isn't playing to the hand of players he has at his disposal and he's throwing whatever he can at the wall to see what sticks. The 3-5-2 (or 3-1-4-2, whichever it is) doesn't fit the players we have. We're forcing traditional wingers to play WB and defend for most of the game. Playing 3 at the back with such clearly cautious width just makes us so inherently defensive. We don't play through midfield anywhere near enough, particularly when we have typically set up with two holding midfielders. JRC did have, to my eye, his best game for us playing alongside Coventry, but then that's negated by having Berry in the 10 with what feels like no legs for this league. It's just so scruffy for what we could have instead.
I still think that a 4-2-3-1 system with BOTH TC and Apter playing the on-the-touchline wingers of the 3 with default full backs is the play. Both of them could still track back if you needed them to, but with Bree/Bell/Ramsay, you have players who can sit as FBs instead. There must be something I am missing as an armchair fan, but NJ is seemingly as devout to his formation as he is to his religion. We cannot 0-0 our way out of this league position - and we have pace that could hurt teams. We even get a free hit vs Chelsea at home where we could give it a try. I'm not someone that desires champagne football - but as others have said, our forwards are getting less than scraps and defenders in this league will eat up hoofball all day. It doesn't work - but pace and getting the ball in 1-1 situations for Apter and TC might.
We've still got a lot of games to be played at home, but this is a massive, massive window to bring in reinforcements and work our way out of this. I still believe we can do this and stay up, but change in either players or the system needs to be figured out and fast.
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Well said. I’ve not quite shaken the defeat given the manner just yet, but I would rather this pain when my interest and passion for the team doing well has been reignited.Athletico Charlton said:I actually feel quite positive this morning, for a few reasons:
- Despite the result, Portsmouth were awful, if they don't strengthen in Jan, they won't be picking up loads of points. See Oxford for this too.
- gutting to lose at the end of course and our football was attritional but it was better than I have seen recently
- big if, but if they stay fit, Burke, Bell and Jones + Ramsey when back), is a very good, solid base to start.
- at least the end was entertaining. Have to admit when we equalised, I was on my chair singing away, when we conceded I just laughed at the nonsense of it all. I haven't been entertained at our games for some weeks now and, ultimately football is in the entertainment business.
- we are still 5 points clear of relegation and I would have taken that all day long at the end of 2025 had I been offered at the start of the season.
Over to the board, Chapple and Jones to bring in the right reinforcements now.Given our current situation, it’s easy to forget we’ve had to endure some absolute tripe over the last few years and read comments re; the likes of Alex Gilbey ‘I think there’s a player in there’ and watch the likes of Dean Holden make up for the fact he was in way above his head by going for drinks down the Oak.It might come across as misplaced arrogance, but history and the size of our club dictates that to me, we’re a Championship club, and the thought of going back into the pit of league one after all these years in the wilderness is frightening. Relatively speaking, the club is the most stable it’s been off the field since Curbs left, and we have to hold onto that and continue to be the excellent fanbase we can be.It’s shit to have secured 4pts from the last 9 games and definitely worrying, but as has been mentioned we have a 5 pt cushion going into the second half of the season on the bottom three. There’s not a single person on here, glass half full or empty that isn’t concerned, but we just have to keep turning up week in, week out and getting behind them.We lack that bit of quality to win games when we’re not at a 110%, but that’s our lot. Hopefully we can turn up on New Year’s Day and give Coventry a game. They aren’t Real Madrid and have wobbled a bit recently. Bring it on11 -
All the players that started the season, apart from Edwards, are back.Stuart_Learys_Boots said:Maybe I am being a little over optimistic here but.We all agree we were the better team last night.If we were playing poorly with lack of commitment then I would be worried.Isn’t it simply a case of keeping going and over time we will start to win again?And we have players coming back…..when that happens, NJ can pick a settled lineup that was working very well at the start of the season.
Edwards may feature in the last few games and Godden is unlikely to start for a long time if at all.
Then we're obviously going to get other injuries.
We need 3 players that are better than what we have.7 -
We seem to be the only club in the championship that doesn't have a diminutive tricky Asian6
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Fuk(uda) you :0tangoflash said:We seem to be the only club in the championship that doesn't have a diminutive tricky Asian6 -
Behaviour and types of fan have been in decline post-Covid. People have forgotten how to behave in public.boggzy said:
On last night's showing it honestly wouldn't surprise me if we had more wong'uns at games now than Millwall. The amount of geared-up grim-looking inbreds was off the scale. A scrap between ours behind the goal had to be broken up then another nearly broke out. All ready to boil over. Been getting more and more over the years, as oohaah says: the c**t-filter appears to have broken down somewhat.oohaahmortimer said:Mrs and petrolhead got back half hour ago , she said there was coked up pissed wallys standing in front few rows who were a pain and it was as bad as Birmingham away for the fuckedupness of our support .
She said there were loads of envelopes with the duplicated tickets when she got hers , there’s too many for them all to have gone missing in the post , I think our ticket office does as good as it can but it’s basically fucking shit, much like our team !
To top it all that viral video in the corner features your archetypal trainspotter weirdo Charlton types - and you don't get anything of the scenes and sense of celebration from being in the thick of the main throng once the equaliser went in. Or the disbelief not long after. Why the fuck did that even get uploaded?! We're the bloody laughing stock at the moment - unforgivable the team simply switched off and waited for the final whistle.
FFS6 -
PWR
I don’t know about the Ghost of Christmas Past, but it feels like the Ghost of Appleton has reappeared 👻. I’m thinking specifically about his last game against Northampton, when after we come back from 2 down we let them score the winner on 97 🤦🏻♀️
I can’t see how we’re going to get out of this dire run we’re on. I don’t think the window is going to be as helpful as we all hope, anybody decent isn’t going to be let go by his club and we’ll probably be stuck with a couple of panic signings.1 -
what would posses you to post that if you'd taken the videocarly burn said:6 -
Our defenders (what our success over the last year has been built on) are all more suited to playing in a back 3. Are Apter and TC worth sacrificing some of that defensive solidity for? I don’t think so, we’d concede more goals as well as score more, and I don’t think we have the attackers to score enough to make up for that.th0rryy said:On reflection, I'm just glad we managed to get those points when we did earlier in the season - because right now, without those points, we'd be looking up at everyone except for Sheff Wed. With their woes, that gave us the out of the fact that we'd only need two sides worse than us this season. Still think that will be Oxford and another, but right now, it feels like somewhat of a dice roll as to whether this will be us or any of the others under about 17th. The league is completely unpredictable and it will go to the wire for us again, almost certainly. Even at best, it feels like safety with a few weeks to spare might be a pretty crazy bet.
Yesterday was what it was. Yet again highlighting how certain players switch off defensively (for both of their goals) and how our "it's just about tolerable if you get any points" NJ anti-football leads to a real lack of chance generation. Defensively, Gillesphey isn't up to the level at all and is only in the team from necessity. The double commit with Jones for the header for the goal is an absolute horror, and honestly, I'd rather have Gough playing instead. Even with a joke of a referee that gave us absolutely nothing, we carved out the equaliser, only to throw away with a lack of concentration to the final minute. This league highlights our frailties in the worst way possible in this area.
I've already written at length about how I feel NJ isn't playing to the hand of players he has at his disposal and he's throwing whatever he can at the wall to see what sticks. The 3-5-2 (or 3-1-4-2, whichever it is) doesn't fit the players we have. We're forcing traditional wingers to play WB and defend for most of the game. Playing 3 at the back with such clearly cautious width just makes us so inherently defensive. We don't play through midfield anywhere near enough, particularly when we have typically set up with two holding midfielders. JRC did have, to my eye, his best game for us playing alongside Coventry, but then that's negated by having Berry in the 10 with what feels like no legs for this league. It's just so scruffy for what we could have instead.
I still think that a 4-2-3-1 system with BOTH TC and Apter playing the on-the-touchline wingers of the 3 with default full backs is the play. Both of them could still track back if you needed them to, but with Bree/Bell/Ramsay, you have players who can sit as FBs instead. There must be something I am missing as an armchair fan, but NJ is seemingly as devout to his formation as he is to his religion. We cannot 0-0 our way out of this league position - and we have pace that could hurt teams. We even get a free hit vs Chelsea at home where we could give it a try. I'm not someone that desires champagne football - but as others have said, our forwards are getting less than scraps and defenders in this league will eat up hoofball all day. It doesn't work - but pace and getting the ball in 1-1 situations for Apter and TC might.
We've still got a lot of games to be played at home, but this is a massive, massive window to bring in reinforcements and work our way out of this. I still believe we can do this and stay up, but change in either players or the system needs to be figured out and fast.3-5-2 is 100% the right system for us. We’ve seen that it works for us when we have the right players available. We desperately need a LWB, once that’s sorted we will be a much better team. When we have a proper LWB, we can play as we did last season and the start of this season, and attack in a 4-2-3-1 with TC peeling out wide. When we have the right players for our system, we get results. When we don’t we struggle2 -
I didn't even see the winner. I was stood on a seat giving it to the home lot after we'd scored and assumed (like our defence) that the ref would blow up after the restart! Just said to my brother after "well, thats why we all love football" ridiculous! That's pretty funny in the cold light of day tbfcarly burn said:2
