Posting without reading. Didn't go. Not interested in going until the Belgians have gone. It breaks my heart but that's the way it is #boycottcontinues
Where to start? Why not at the beginning. My second visit to the valley this season having not renewed. The first that I've paid for. Online system treated me as a total stranger at 1130 and I felt like one for most of the day. Said hello to a few old friends. Good to see them. Went and sat in the front row of the upper west towards the away end. The perfect place to see our decent start and our pathetic capitulation. Strange atmosphere. A load of silent tartan blankets brigade and a few protest shirt wearing people. I sat with no one within five seats in any direction and pondered my thoughts. A relaxing hour and a half of contemplation and the odd moment of entertainment but ultimate frustration. But I didn't need to be a clairvoyant to see the end coming. This is league one folks and it ain't pretty. Our two magicians, Lookman and Ricky entertained from time to time and frustrated in equal measure. You are allowed to pass guys. Otherwise it was a tale of tactical ineptitude and a display that reminded of a Tesco value range sandwich and school dinners custard - not much in the middle and way to many lumps. We lost a game that we could have won and, yet again, I left frustrated at our tactical limitations. New manager, slightly different variety of shite. But shite nevertheless. And the most galling and illuminating thing for me? I realised, finally, that I don't give one any more. A shite that is. As Captain Scott once famously said, I may be gone for some time.
Oh, and I stayed to the bitter end and was home in dartford at 1735. My mate drives like Verstappen but even so.....how times have changed.
It was Capt Lawrence Oats who said that. Sorry, I couldn't resist but every day's a school day.
Where to start? Why not at the beginning. My second visit to the valley this season having not renewed. The first that I've paid for. Online system treated me as a total stranger at 1130 and I felt like one for most of the day. Said hello to a few old friends. Good to see them. Went and sat in the front row of the upper west towards the away end. The perfect place to see our decent start and our pathetic capitulation. Strange atmosphere. A load of silent tartan blankets brigade and a few protest shirt wearing people. I sat with no one within five seats in any direction and pondered my thoughts. A relaxing hour and a half of contemplation and the odd moment of entertainment but ultimate frustration. But I didn't need to be a clairvoyant to see the end coming. This is league one folks and it ain't pretty. Our two magicians, Lookman and Ricky entertained from time to time and frustrated in equal measure. You are allowed to pass guys. Otherwise it was a tale of tactical ineptitude and a display that reminded of a Tesco value range sandwich and school dinners custard - not much in the middle and way to many lumps. We lost a game that we could have won and, yet again, I left frustrated at our tactical limitations. New manager, slightly different variety of shite. But shite nevertheless. And the most galling and illuminating thing for me? I realised, finally, that I don't give one any more. A shite that is. As Captain Scott once famously said, I may be gone for some time.
Oh, and I stayed to the bitter end and was home in dartford at 1735. My mate drives like Verstappen but even so.....how times have changed.
It was Capt Lawrence Oats who said that. Sorry, I couldn't resist but every day's a school day.
As the chap with two newly fitted braces said, I stand corrected. :-)
PWR Two main problems today. Inability to finish off a couple of the many chances we had. Plus poor management. Slade stuck with Ajose too long, he was little boy lost all game. Plus failure to introduce JJ in the second half. It was a game crying out for his influence.
Just got back. Bit of a smash and grab from them but simply not good enough from us. Too many long balls when we just needed to keep possession to manage the game when in front., that way we could have hit them on the break as they searched for the equaliser. Can't understand why Bokata wasn't thrown on at the end. Can't see us going up on what I've seen so far this season.
(Writing and posting this without first seeing the preceding comments)
I am so angry with our tactics that I am offering these post-match comments for the first ever time.
We had today, the two best technical and potential match-winning players in Lookman and Holmes. This observation is strengthened by Lookman 's early goal and Holmes' late forays. They both frightened the opposition, yet we used both players far, far too sparingly.
Conversely, we opted to persistently lump the ball forward to Mcgennis, who sadly, doesn't have the nous to play that difficult role. He insisted on setting himself in a standing position in the "drop zone" and therefore wasn't able to leap to outjump his opponent. I don't recall him winning a single header all day (my definition of a "winning header" is a situation whereby the header is directed in an intended direction). The ball did skid off of his header on a number of occasions, but poor old Ajose had no idea whatsoever, the direction the ball subsequently took.
He needs to study Yann, who often started his run in a wide area to attack a centrally hit high ball, which gave him the pace to leap higher than from a standing position. It also always gave Yann a greater opportunity to lose his marker in the process. What I have described is basic centre forward nous.
Furthermore, if we are to use long ball tactics in the Mcgennis fashion, we need in the immediate aftermath of such tactics to narrow the midfielder in order to win our share of the second balls. In our case, we had two wide midfielders (Lookman/Holmes), who were then not in the game, plus Croft and the new lad (the latter of whom had, in my opinion, a good first 65 mins until he tired). Thus nearer every second ball was won by Wimbledon, who packed the central midfield. These tactics are so basic, that I have serious doubts about the quality of Mr Slade.
Otherwise, I thought the effort was exceptional by all players and they showed a lot of determination, but tactics not determination wins games.
But its not the worst result in years... Its the worst result this season yet Huddersfield scoring FIVE against us last season was a lot worse.
Christ they only finished a few places ahead of us last season yet somehow managed to put that many past us
I'd take a spanking against Huddersfield or Hull over losing at home to AFC Wimbledon any day
Can I ask why?
Because the level's so much worse. Hull are in the Prem this season. AFC Wimbledon only formed five minutes ago and we're down in League One, a league we should be looking to win, and they're turning us over. It's far more depressing to me
But this is the level we're at for a reason...
We will lose games this season and ultimately its a game between two teams of eleven players, just because one of those squads was only formed five minutes means nothing to me
I don't understand why people think this is any kind of argument. 'Don't be upset when we're shit, we're shit now'. We know. It's why we're upset.
Spoke briefly with Chris Parkes after the game. He said that we should be grateful we have Roland as our owner because otherwise we could end up like Wimbledon!
But its not the worst result in years... Its the worst result this season yet Huddersfield scoring FIVE against us last season was a lot worse.
Christ they only finished a few places ahead of us last season yet somehow managed to put that many past us
I'd take a spanking against Huddersfield or Hull over losing at home to AFC Wimbledon any day
Can I ask why?
Because the level's so much worse. Hull are in the Prem this season. AFC Wimbledon only formed five minutes ago and we're down in League One, a league we should be looking to win, and they're turning us over. It's far more depressing to me
But this is the level we're at for a reason...
We will lose games this season and ultimately its a game between two teams of eleven players, just because one of those squads was only formed five minutes means nothing to me
I don't understand why people think this is any kind of argument. 'Don't be upset when we're shit, we're shit now'. We know. It's why we're upset.
Not saying we've got to accept we're shit we just need to accept we're at the level we're at.
We're where we are on merit and AFC Wimbledon are at the same level because of merit... Its like saying we shouldnt expect to beat Liverpool next week if we played them, why the hell not?
Been manic at working all day (the joy of a phone shop on iPhone launch weekend) but I just burst out laughing in the stock room when the result came through on my phone.
Spoke briefly with Chris Parkes after the game. He said that we should be grateful we have Roland as our owner because otherwise we could end up like Wimbledon!
HOW? Where would we move to (if Charlton became Milton Keynes Dons Mk.2)
Or does he mean that we'd have to revert to being fan owned and climbing the Divisions which if we did end up completely like Wimbledon, we'd be back in the same Division we're currently in after an absense
But its not the worst result in years... Its the worst result this season yet Huddersfield scoring FIVE against us last season was a lot worse.
Christ they only finished a few places ahead of us last season yet somehow managed to put that many past us
I'd take a spanking against Huddersfield or Hull over losing at home to AFC Wimbledon any day
Can I ask why?
Because the level's so much worse. Hull are in the Prem this season. AFC Wimbledon only formed five minutes ago and we're down in League One, a league we should be looking to win, and they're turning us over. It's far more depressing to me
But this is the level we're at for a reason...
We will lose games this season and ultimately its a game between two teams of eleven players, just because one of those squads was only formed five minutes means nothing to me
I don't understand why people think this is any kind of argument. 'Don't be upset when we're shit, we're shit now'. We know. It's why we're upset.
Not saying we've got to accept we're shit we just need to accept we're at the level we're at.
We're where we are on merit and AFC Wimbledon are at the same level because of merit... Its like saying we shouldnt expect to beat Liverpool next week if we played them, why the hell not?
I honestly don't know what your point is. We don't have to accept the level we're at. In fact, to take your point from a page back, no-one does until they abolish promotion and relegation. I don't accept the level we're at. With the resources we have there is absolutely no reason we should even be in this league, let alone losing matches like this. To 'accept the level we're at' is to accept the shite that's been foisted on us for the past two years and I refuse. If you want to blithely accept being turned over by Wimbledon because the footballing gods have deemed it so then fine, but we are where we are because of atrocious decisions that have been made over and over again by feckless, dishonest morons.
Give it time - "Be patient" - and I suspect another might not be too far away. Unfortunately.
The sad thing, for me, is that I barely felt any emotion as Jeff Stelling announced there'd been another goal at The Valley. I've already seen that film.
Started off really pleased to be at the Valley. Good to watch a game with my brother. First home game this season.
Got a protest black & white scarf. Missed the football protest shirt picture as that seemed to take place 10 mins early. Those protest shirts look really good. Sat in some different seats with a good view. Lots of black and white in the ground. Lookman scored early on with a really nice piece of skill. Wimbledon were pretty functional. Charlton created some chances but everything was pretty low key, and had the pace of a training match. Lookman showing some excellent skill. I liked the look of McGennis but Ajose was disappointing putting 3 good shooting chances wide and over.
Second half, goalkeeper produced an excellent save to deny Holmes. Didn't see what happened but a WImbledon player collapsed and was carried of (hope they are ok), and they brought on the big striker, Tom Elliot who immediately starting to unsettle the Charlton defence. Novak replaced the poor AJose. Wimbledon got the bit between their teeth and pushed forward with belief. Charlton needed a second goal but it didn't come. The final ball was poor all afternoon. A goal was looking more and more likely for Wimbledon.
Lookman faded but stayed on but there was no changes. I am not sure why Slade didn't change anything. Botaka was an obvious choice and someone in the midfield, maybe Jackson to inject some fight. Croft was pretty anonymous and light weight, and Ulvestadt made a couple of battling runs but wandered around looking confused. Not sure if he will get better but he didn't look like a creative or box to box midfielder. Early days but I wondered how the midfield could be left so anonymous.
Konsa made a good block but the equaliser for Wimbledon came and this was followed by a sickener of a second.
I got that familiar sick and dispiriting pit of my stomach that happens when I watch Charlton lose, especially when they have surrendered the game.
Spoke briefly with Chris Parkes after the game. He said that we should be grateful we have Roland as our owner because otherwise we could end up like Wimbledon!
HOW? Where would we move to (if Charlton became Milton Keynes Dons Mk.2)
Or does he mean that we'd have to revert to being fan owned and climbing the Divisions which if we did end up completely like Wimbledon, we'd be back in the same Division we're currently in after an absense
Must be awful to be in league one and end up winning at the valley! The Irony
Today wasn't like a lot of defeats I've seen. We dominated the game, for one, and our midfield looked competent, for two.
I have to disagree about the midfield because there is no sense of coherence or team structure there. Lookman in his bubble, very good one though it may be, Holmes too, with his lovely surging runs and get a cross in, Fred and Crofts running around breaking up play and supplying a degree of energy, but mot a midfield unit in the way i understand it. Wimbledon had a midfield, and even though they did not have any individual player as good as Lookman, the way they combined with each other made up for it. I am sorry, but i don't think our midfield looked competent, and for the most part we hit long balls to Josh for Ajose to try to feed off, that may be a good plan 'a', but we don't have the resources for a plan 'b' which Wimbledon clearly had today.
Did you ever play competitive football after you'd left school?
We were the better team for over an hour, but as time went on we lost more and more of our grip on it. We went from comfortably treading water to drowning without ever realising that something had changed. When they scored, our heads went town and there was nothing to stop them getting a second. Somehow in the oxymoronic world of Charlton Athletic it seemed unbelievable and utterly predictable at the same time.
Lookman was very good in the first half, the goal was finished superbly. Holmes frightened them when he ran at them and worked tirelessly to stop them ever getting on the attack. Magennis tried hard and showed one fantastic piece of ball control. In the first half Rudd had one thing to do; he caught a low cross and made it look very easy. Sadly, those positives will not be the things that are remembered. What will be remembered is the way that we capitulated. We turned from a side who were one decent shot away from winning into one that didn't know what to do and seemingly weren't that bothered either. By the time we decided to fight back, Wimbledon decided to play keep-ball in the corner.
I was there on a freebie ticket. Whilst I probably wouldn't turn down another freebie, it definitely confirmed that I'm missing nothing on continuing my boycott.
Spoke briefly with Chris Parkes after the game. He said that we should be grateful we have Roland as our owner because otherwise we could end up like Wimbledon!
To be honest if Roland hadn't come in we would have been poor off financially and he may well have saved the club from admin. But that said he has made many poor decisions sice. It's like Man A saving Man B from drowning and the next day Man B returns home to find his wife in bed being mounted by Man A.
Reminded me of a typical Bob Peeters game: started well, played nice football, scored, then slipped into neutral, didn't kill the game off and didn't play dreadfully but ended up with the other team getting the result.
Despite what has been posted previously about him Konsa looked like a reserve centre half to me. We really should have started with Bauer.
Maybe - given the type of team we were playing too - we should have started with Jackson and had Ulvestad on the bench. But.....Jackson isn't the player he once was and I thought Ulvestad had an ok game as it happens.
Why did we lose? Because we didn't take our chances. Ajose missed twice and was out of position for a third, Holmes missed once and then ran the length of the pitch for a second only to shoot straight at the 'keeper, Magennis headed over, Lookman had one saved and Novak one disallowed (rightly) for off side. Last season these 5 players scored 69 goals - I'd expect the same this season from them at Charlton but they were firing blanks today and it wasn't really because of a lack of service.
Comments
What do you expect?
Two main problems today.
Inability to finish off a couple of the many chances we had.
Plus poor management. Slade stuck with Ajose too long, he was little boy lost all game. Plus failure to introduce JJ in the second half. It was a game crying out for his influence.
I am so angry with our tactics that I am offering these post-match comments for the first ever time.
We had today, the two best technical and potential match-winning players in Lookman and Holmes. This observation is strengthened by Lookman 's early goal and Holmes' late forays. They both frightened the opposition, yet we used both players far, far too sparingly.
Conversely, we opted to persistently lump the ball forward to Mcgennis, who sadly, doesn't have the nous to play that difficult role. He insisted on setting himself in a standing position in the "drop zone" and therefore wasn't able to leap to outjump his opponent. I don't recall him winning a single header all day (my definition of a "winning header" is a situation whereby the header is directed in an intended direction). The ball did skid off of his header on a number of occasions, but poor old Ajose had no idea whatsoever, the direction the ball subsequently took.
He needs to study Yann, who often started his run in a wide area to attack a centrally hit high ball, which gave him the pace to leap higher than from a standing position. It also always gave Yann a greater opportunity to lose his marker in the process. What I have described is basic centre forward nous.
Furthermore, if we are to use long ball tactics in the Mcgennis fashion, we need in the immediate aftermath of such tactics to narrow the midfielder in order to win our share of the second balls. In our case, we had two wide midfielders (Lookman/Holmes), who were then not in the game, plus Croft and the new lad (the latter of whom had, in my opinion, a good first 65 mins until he tired). Thus nearer every second ball was won by Wimbledon, who packed the central midfield. These tactics are so basic, that I have serious doubts about the quality of Mr Slade.
Otherwise, I thought the effort was exceptional by all players and they showed a lot of determination, but tactics not determination wins games.
Rant over!
We're where we are on merit and AFC Wimbledon are at the same level because of merit... Its like saying we shouldnt expect to beat Liverpool next week if we played them, why the hell not?
Or does he mean that we'd have to revert to being fan owned and climbing the Divisions which if we did end up completely like Wimbledon, we'd be back in the same Division we're currently in after an absense
Got a protest black & white scarf. Missed the football protest shirt picture as that seemed to take place 10 mins early. Those protest shirts look really good. Sat in some different seats with a good view. Lots of black and white in the ground. Lookman scored early on with a really nice piece of skill. Wimbledon were pretty functional. Charlton created some chances but everything was pretty low key, and had the pace of a training match. Lookman showing some excellent skill. I liked the look of McGennis but Ajose was disappointing putting 3 good shooting chances wide and over.
Second half, goalkeeper produced an excellent save to deny Holmes. Didn't see what happened but a WImbledon player collapsed and was carried of (hope they are ok), and they brought on the big striker, Tom Elliot who immediately starting to unsettle the Charlton defence. Novak replaced the poor AJose. Wimbledon got the bit between their teeth and pushed forward with belief. Charlton needed a second goal but it didn't come. The final ball was poor all afternoon. A goal was looking more and more likely for Wimbledon.
Lookman faded but stayed on but there was no changes. I am not sure why Slade didn't change anything. Botaka was an obvious choice and someone in the midfield, maybe Jackson to inject some fight. Croft was pretty anonymous and light weight, and Ulvestadt made a couple of battling runs but wandered around looking confused. Not sure if he will get better but he didn't look like a creative or box to box midfielder. Early days but I wondered how the midfield could be left so anonymous.
Konsa made a good block but the equaliser for Wimbledon came and this was followed by a sickener of a second.
I got that familiar sick and dispiriting pit of my stomach that happens when I watch Charlton lose, especially when they have surrendered the game.
The Irony
I've no idea where this will all end.
I'm now boycotting until Duchatelet is gone.
We all have bad days I guess...
Dark, dark days.
Lookman was very good in the first half, the goal was finished superbly. Holmes frightened them when he ran at them and worked tirelessly to stop them ever getting on the attack. Magennis tried hard and showed one fantastic piece of ball control. In the first half Rudd had one thing to do; he caught a low cross and made it look very easy. Sadly, those positives will not be the things that are remembered. What will be remembered is the way that we capitulated. We turned from a side who were one decent shot away from winning into one that didn't know what to do and seemingly weren't that bothered either. By the time we decided to fight back, Wimbledon decided to play keep-ball in the corner.
I was there on a freebie ticket. Whilst I probably wouldn't turn down another freebie, it definitely confirmed that I'm missing nothing on continuing my boycott.
Despite what has been posted previously about him Konsa looked like a reserve centre half to me. We really should have started with Bauer.
Maybe - given the type of team we were playing too - we should have started with Jackson and had Ulvestad on the bench. But.....Jackson isn't the player he once was and I thought Ulvestad had an ok game as it happens.
Why did we lose? Because we didn't take our chances. Ajose missed twice and was out of position for a third, Holmes missed once and then ran the length of the pitch for a second only to shoot straight at the 'keeper, Magennis headed over, Lookman had one saved and Novak one disallowed (rightly) for off side. Last season these 5 players scored 69 goals - I'd expect the same this season from them at Charlton but they were firing blanks today and it wasn't really because of a lack of service.
We could have been 3-0 up after an hour.