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POST-MATCH THREAD: Charlton Athletic v Sheffield United: Saturday 17th January 2026: KO 15:00
Comments
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My concern(s) is that we seem to be going backwards in a number of areas:ShootersHillGuru said:Worried. Imperative we stay up and I’m not sure we will.- Our cohesion seems to be getting worse, not better, as the season progresses. We look like a team of strangers quite a lot of the time and positionally we look all over the place.- Basics like passing and closing down seem to be deserting us - so many misplaced today, even in pretty simple scenarios.- The amount of chopping and changing and shoehorning players into positions doesn’t seem to be helping.- I’ve mentioned this a few times recently on post match threads, but I’m really concerned about the lack of leadership in the side. I think that feeds into the “team of strangers”‘ thing above. I think leadership, especially in a team that’s not going to have players of the same capability as the opposition in most games, is really important. Who are the leaders in our XI? L.Jones is about the only one that seems to have any semblance of it for me.5 -
One of the most bizarre games I have seen.....we were terrible first 35 minutes and were completely overrun and should have been 3-0 down but for Kaminski and the woodwork. ....then Sheff Utd completely imploded with 2 rightful sendings off......we didn't look good against 9 men but managed to squeak out a win......need to improve Tuesday3
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I’m beginning to wonder if NJ has lost the dressing room. We know he has fallen out with Apter and maybe negativity is starting to spread through the squad. Hopefully I am wrong.9
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Its a tough one
That sort of stuff doesn't happen to us and I'm really salty about the first red as it was a genuinely horrible tackle on an honest player.
Anyway, a side down to 9 men for most of the game is a cursed thing. I remember us nicking a point v Swindon when we went down to 9 following 2 equally moronic reds. You either launch yourself at the game and go hell for leather or you play it sensible, get deep, compact and play for set pieces on the break. Like a professional boxer going full on defensive mode thats hard to play against especially with a team so lacking in confidence. I really didn't care how the points came today and was fairly amazed we got them after somehow not conceding for the first half hour.
I think Nathan Jones works best when either the world is against him and when it isn't he has to build that mentality which is possibly what he was doing afterwards. We still need some reinforcements in, desperately actually. Anderson had one today but he's hardly played and his inexperienced, he should learn from today.
Hope Coventry is now fully rested, we badly missed him today6 -
Vic Reeves once said that 88.2% of stats are made up on the spot - so don’t trust thisse9addick said:
No idea, I am but the messenger.paulsturgess said:
How have Sheff U had 0 “big chances”se9addick said:Off_it said:
What are the stats for the first half v second half? BBC only has them for the whole match.AFKABartram said:
I’m in exactly the same place @chunes. Aspects of the Chelsea performance concerned me, but I put that down our players feeling inferior/ showing too much respect. But we were just as bad both in and out of possession today. No partnerships seemed right, we are on our heels or out of positional shape far too much (why we collect so many bookings for pull backs, play stopping etc). We have no real flow to our play at all at the moment.Chunes said:Posting without reading. I felt like tonight was probably a night to stay off of CL because of the inevitably obvious car crash between the optimists and the realists. But oh well, let's not pretend this site isn't an addictive dopamine hook that can be avoided.
I thought we were so incredibly lucky to not be 4 - 0 down early on the first half. Kaminski singlehandedly kept us in it. It took two sendings off for us to scrape the win.
It's so weird that we won, and yet it's the first day of the season that I thought to myself... We really could go down. I hadn't thought it was a possibility before today. I genuinely thought we had enough. But now, I'm really not sure.
The stats for the 1st half are horrific, particularly given they had 10 men for the last 10 mins. For the 1st half, we made just 28 passes in the opposing half (for comparison, 0-0 1st half on the opening game v Watford was 70 passes off just 42% possession).0.0xg. No shots, no corners, no touches in the opposition box. That last stat is bonkers.
1st half stats3 -
was a 100per cent nailed on pen to them after 6 mins when anderson just pushed their bloke over in the box3
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Alarm bells have been ringing for me for a few weeks. We have looked ragged in games for long periods and our attacking play is horribly one dimensional.
I feared for us today when I saw that midfield and commented on the preview thread that we would see how important Connor Coventry is for us. That first 35/40 mins today was as bad as I have seen us for a very long time. We were utterly overrun, completely outmuscled and our manager was out thought.
It is becoming a recurring theme, our starting 11/formation ends up being wrong or not coping with what the opposition bring to the party and collectively we are too slow to respond.
I accept that we are coming up against teams with better players than us, but I can't accept 35 minutes of chaos while a team passes round us and opens our defence up with ease. I am sure 90% of the crowd could see that we needed an extra man in midfield to try and stem the flow?
The real concern is that we just aren't doing the basics right. Our passing was miserable and rather than trying to stem the tide by having a period of time were we just kept the ball, we utilised what seems to be plan A this season and punted the ball forward aimlessly or simply turned it over far too easily.
We all know that the balance of the team has been seriously upset by the issues we have had with injuries on the left hand side, but I have been saying for a while now that we have an equally big problem in midfield. When was the last time our midfield controlled a game and wasn't chasing its own collective tail? We have a lack of physicality in there and no one with a turn of pace who can drive us up the field when we are getting pushed back. How many times do our midfielders get caught out of position and end up getting booked for a late tackle or shirt pull?
Pleased for Kaminski. He was excellent today and make no mistake, other than the ref, he is the main reason we have collected 3 points.
I do wonder whether the club should save Nathan Jones from himself in situations like that and send out someone else to do the press. He is an emotive bloke, petulantly blanking the fans is not a good look and surely he will look back at today with hindsight and have a modicum of sympathy with the fans - the crowd weren't that bad and understandably got frustrated with the approach from about 70 mins onwards. Someone else posted that we stopped trying to score and I couldn't agree more - there was a moment when Sheff Utd broke from our corner and I thought we were going to pay for that approach.
Plus points - Harry Clarke looked solid in a woeful performance, Dykes showed that he could be a threat, Kaminiski was excellent and Leaburn is continuing to perform at a decent level. The rest were not great.
I never want to see Anderson in that Number 6 role again and for god's sake please get a left footed wing back in the door.15 -
I have to say, watching on the stream I thought Anderson had some good moments. He had some poor ones too but it he was far from all bad. I think he’s more effective next to a proper sitter like Coventry in more of the Docerty role, but JRC has that spot locked down currently.8
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I've felt like that since the Portsmouth game. I felt they were the worst team we have played all season, including Sheffield Wednesday, and they beat us.Chunes said:It's so weird that we won, and yet it's the first day of the season that I thought to myself... We really could go down. I hadn't thought it was a possibility before today. I genuinely thought we had enough. But now, I'm really not sure.
I said at the time that I felt that the remaining two relegation slots were between us, Portsmouth and Oxford Utd and not much has changed since then.
I'm pretty confident that Oxford United will finish 23rd, so that leaves 22nd. While Norwich are there now, they aren't going to finish there. The only team, other than us and Portsmouth, that I could see finishing there is Blackburn Rovers.
It's absolutely vital that we get SOMETHING on Tuesday as we aren't going to get anything away to Millwall or Leicester and our relegation rivals (Blackburn and Pompey) have home ties when we're away. The last thing we want going into February is to be 22nd.5 -
I think the key point from NJ post match interview, is that he knows just how good Sheff Utd are individually AND as a team. And more important, all of our players know it. Man for man, I'm pretty sure their player gets picked over ours 1-11, hence the reality is, they could, should and would, beat us most times out of 10. We've been extremely lucky to play them when out of form early season, and when having a brain fart today. The result today tells us that we can compete in this league, but with expansive entertaining football, not a hope in hells chance. The result IS everything, because the performance isn't our priority, not just today, but for the entire season.
NJ is pissed off because his team brought home the bacon today (3 points), and the fans collectively said, "Not enough!"
I hate the NJ style of play, but IF it keeps us up, will most people be happy, or still be saying, "Not enough?"7 -
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Haven't seen any replays but felt at the time it was deflected onto the post, in which case I presume it would be classified as a blocked shot?swords_alive said:These are the half time stats from fotmob i was sent. Not sure how reliable a souce they are. Sheff U did hit the woodwork and that isn't there. Lots of zeros for us obviously, tells the story.
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On the Beeb player ratings for the game Godden, who in 1 min of play got no touches and no tackles, got a better score than nearly half our team!ArmchairAddick said:Heres my top tactical tip. Pass the ball to where the players are heading, not where they were ten seconds ago.I look forward to what will surely be the lowest scoring stats for a win in CL history! (Kaminski excepted).Who got MOTM by the way?4 -
Clarke to me was no good, his crossing was absolutely awful. I see others felt he did well / very well however.What am I not seeing?0
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Team currently lacks balance. There are players being pulled to cover the left wing half position, who are not natural for that position, and they are not then playing in their natural positions. Sort the left side out, restore the balance and the team will be fine. If we have Josh Edwards and Amari I Bell back the team then I can't see us getting relegated IMO.
Edwards and Bell are great players but are injury prone and getting in some decent cover is very important to help stop the team being derailed, and allow players to be rested to avoid injury.
NJ when he supported with decent players, can motivate and put a team out that is competitive in this league. Hoping that our owners can see the potential and support getting the cover in.0 -
We won in a poor performance. But we won. Flush the dunny. Move on.7
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Do we know that, or are you just making things up because he isn’t playing?Valleyfan2 said:I’m beginning to wonder if NJ has lost the dressing room. We know he has fallen out with Apter and maybe negativity is starting to spread through the squad. Hopefully I am wrong.3 -
Puzzled that Apter wasn't given a go.3
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I don’t understand all the Nathan Jones bashing. The aim this season is to stay up and I think we will quite comfortably. We were in League 1 for a while and had developed a league 1 attitude and a league 1 team. It takes a while to change that culture. But slowly Nathan Jones will do that. Give him a chance.I know today wasn’t pretty but a win is a win. The Championship is brutal and we’re doing that, essentially, with mainly a league 1 squad. I can understand his caution in games.17
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They came into the game better, stronger, hungrier and dirtier.
Jones set up for us to play attacking, but the players didn't bring their A-Game, we looked slow, lethargic and lacking bite, but the injury to Knibbs should have changed that, then the two red cards should have given us optimism.
It seemed it didn't change anything for Sheffield though, they kept professional and played smart defensively.
Our numbers eventually broke them down and We got our goal and then went into lockdown mode - Do NOT concede was clearly our driving factor. We played to counter and hope to hit them on the break, but otherwise it was lock that shit down.
We got the result, it was somewhat boring and that is probably the most disappointing factor, people believed we would go on and score 2-3 more goals and we all hoped that would be the case.
However we have been careless with our leads of late and have dropped points, so I think this was the most sensible approach.2 -
Scorelines do not give an overview of the whole game. 4 points against Coventry and NINE men Sheff Utd.Todds_right_hook said:I now remember why I don’t read
post match threads often anymore. We are not Brazil, not pretty to watch but 4 point against Coventry and Sheffield United!!!!!!!!
As they say in golf........scorecards paint no pictures.
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He put an excellent cross in that Dykes couldnt quite stretch for.Watameire said:Clarke to me was no good, his crossing was absolutely awful. I see others felt he did well / very well however.What am I not seeing?10 -
I think that there is no argument to those points Golfie. I think that people are finding out just how tough this league is, any drop in standards or loss of form then it's very difficult to get yourself back in the groove, you certainly cannot get away with having players played out of position and think they won't get found out. There is another problem to add to that and that is it's not as easy to blood youngsters to help out or develop. If we survive, and I'm hopeful we will, then transfer policy will have to take a huge leap, otherwise we will struggle and eventually drop.golfaddick said:
Financial adverts are usually caveated with the words...." past performance is no guarantee of future returns". And usually the best guide to the future is current trends.TheHerminator said:
It’s mad isn’t it.Garrymanilow said:We’ve gone from ‘I’ll take 21st any way possible’ at the start of the season to whining about winning very quickly, well done everyone. We’ve gained ground on Oxford, West Brom and Blackburn today while beating a team who I don’t think we expected to get 6 points off this season all without a functional LWB and missing some key players. I’ll definitely take it. It’s a good dayAlso people seem to have forgotten how well we played at the start of the season and assume we can never regain any of that form.
a football season is ups and downs. More downs than ups recently but we won’t play that poorly again this year I’ll bet
We are nowhere near the team we were in August & September. We havent played well for months & only won today because the opposition went down to 9 men. We are the only team since the end of August not to score against Norwich and we have 3 tough games coming up before the month is out. No win in those 3 games could mean us being very close to the bottom 3.
And before you start abusing me like you usually do you might do well to read every other post on here, who virtually to a man think we played poorly & were very lucky to get 3 points.2 -
That first half was dreadful, almost as bad as Southampton. The only reason we were still in the game was because they didn’t take their chances and Kaminski pulled off some unbelievable saves. Jones, Kaminski and maybe Ramsay were the only players who had a decent first half.
Even after their first red card, I still thought we’d lose. The midfield was completely non-existent and I never want to see Anderson and Costello in there together again.
When they went down to nine men, my initial reaction was that we might nick a point (only half joking)
After calming down at half-time, I thought surely TC and Coventry would come on and we’d go on to win it. TC did come on, along with Dykes, and we got the early goal. From there I felt we should have gone for a second, not throwing everyone forward but 1-0 and knocking it around slowly as we were felt risky.
Thankfully we saw it out and we’ve really got away with one today. Taking Leaburn off late on when we could have done with his height to defend the corner seemed odd, unless he genuinely couldn’t continue. Bringing Godden on felt like a sentimental sub.
Absolutely behind NJ and think he’s the right man for the job, but we’re crying out for another central midfielder with real quality on the ball, on top of the other obvious areas that need strengthening.
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Jones clearly refuses to play Apter and Campbell as our Wing-Backs at the same time, has done so for months, and its still puzzling?thewolfboy said:Puzzled that Apter wasn't given a go.2 -
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That second half reminded me of what its like going to Wembley to watch England games. Where you know you're very likely to win against a side that has practically no chance, but something also feels a bit lacking. You leave scratching your head wondering why everything is so conservative.
Against 10 men I'd expect a team to go for the jugular. Against 9 men for a full 45 minutes I'd expect them to be absolutely ecstatic about the prospect of filling their boots.
Overall it feels like a very conflicting win. On one hand, I'd have bitten your arm off for something like that before the game started - because we desperately needed 3 points by hook or crook. Staying up is really all that matters in the grand scheme of things.
At the same time, it feels like a real opportunity missed to give a team a proper walloping and really build confidence up. Not to mention the fact that goal difference could end up playing a part at the end of the season - and I doubt we'll have a chance to really go at a team and score goals like we could have done today.6 -
3 valuable points,
absolute pony performance but, 3 valuable points totally understand the fans moans but also understand what NJ is saying,
this season was always about staying up, if we see more performances like this with 3 points I will take that all day long and if we stay up, for this season NJ gets a pass with those performances ,
BUT recruitment in all the right areas for the way he wants to play is a MUST, if we are to keep progressing like he says we are.
After a season in this league he will/should have a much better gauge of how it all works.
so for this season I will take the shit, but next season imo, must do better.
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Puzzling that he sticks to that against 9 men.ForeverAddickted said:
Jones clearly refuses to play Apter and Campbell as our Wing-Backs at the same time, has done so for months, and its still puzzling?thewolfboy said:Puzzled that Apter wasn't given a go.
Given how badly Bree, Anderson and Ramsay were playing and the fact they were down to 9, I would have taken Bree and Ramsay off and brought on Apter and TC to provide width and really gone at them, a back 3 of Clarke, Jones and Gillesphey, Apter and TC wide with Costello, Anderson and Carey in the middle, and Leaburn and Kelman up top.
If that wasn't working, you take Anderson and Kelman or Leaburn off for Dykes and Coventry.
What he did in the end, got us the 3 points, but by God it was horrible to watch. The amount of passes we made across and backwards, not because we were trying to stretch them, but because they had no idea what to do with so much possession, was difficult to swallow4 -
Yes, that would have been double thumbs down 👎 👎Dazzler21 said:
That's better than him going straight to hospitalArthur_Trudgill said:Clarke and Dykes look fine 👍Godden is back 👍Knibs came out in crutches and a protective boot 👎
I was pleased with Leaburn and Rankin-Costello's performance also.
Scary though, to think that even with the quality that SU had you can't guarantee promotion to the PL!1 -
I thought he was poor but his crosses were the best thing about his game todayWatameire said:Clarke to me was no good, his crossing was absolutely awful. I see others felt he did well / very well however.What am I not seeing?1
