I would rather we have won 1-0, enter the playoffs with 4 straight wins, and have Rochdale fans in tears, than what happened today.
After all, SOMEONE was going down. Empathy for Rochdale is non-empathy for Oldham. It's all a wash. But a win would have made us all the more intimidating in 5 days than losing to one of the worst clubs in League One as our finale.
If the result of one game is what determines how intimidating we are then Shrews (lost at home to Mk dons who were already relegated) and Scunthorpe (drew at home with Bradford who have been in mid table obscurity for about 3 months) are equally as (non) intimidating.
I think us beating Blackburn when they were fighting for the title and beating Shrews, Rotherham and Pompy in the last month without even conceding a goal makes us look as intimidating as we need to be.
We can only HOPE that the Shrews look at that game v 'Dale and think they are in for an easy ride because that will give us a massive advantage - something tells me they aren't so short sighted.
Also Oldham had it in their own hands, they couldn't beat an awful Northampton side who were already down - it's not even empathy to be glad for 'Dale it's pragmatism.
Edit; ok we conceded 1 v Rotherham but you get my point!
The Shrews will think back to our win over them less than 3 weeks ago!
I was happy Rochdale stayed up after their great cup run. Keith Hill seems a decent bloke too, and their goalscorer today was Joe Thompson, who's had two cancer scares.
No room for sentiment in football. We were poor and I'm sure not how Bowyer wanted them to perform. Momentum is key at this stage of the season and we just went through the motions.
Too many non performers who you would think should be staking a claim for a play off / final place. Very disappointed and gutted for the travelling hoards who done their doe to watch that crap. Play like that in the semis and we are done for. Still at least the Douchbag will have to take a haircut.
Not a great performance but it didn't matter & I didn't care. I would much prefer to play Kaikai & Zyro in this game than get injuries to Mag & Ajosr & have to play the useless loanees against The Shrews or god forbid at Wembley. Palace fan on 606 tonight bemoaning the fact that they might lose Zaha & Loftus-Cheek next season - well they ate welcome to Kaikai as he is worse than useless. No point discussing any other players as the game was a meaningless friendly & I'm sure we will see a different mentality on thursday.
A couple of other points. Can't see what all the fuss was about re the traffic. Anyone who had trouble on the M62 must have travelled the wrong way. M6 is the route to Manchester. My only complaint was that there was miles & miles of 50 mph restricted speed areas with no roadworks or even cones on display. wtf was that all about ?
In answer to @NapaAddick's much earlier question.....we go because we follow our team - its in our blood. Doesn't matter that its 250 miles away & on tv. There is nothing like being there. Will be there thurs & (if I can get z ticket) next sun.
Finally - any idea if Kag can/will play next week? I hate KR with a passion for bringing in that Palace reject & sending KAG out on loan. I said on Jan 31 that KAG would score more than Zyro & Kaikai combined & I was right. fecking scouse git. Oxford are welcome to him. In Bowyer we trust.
Another poor performance on TV but does anyone really care? I wonder if we were playing against a mid-table side with nothing to play for we may have played even more fringe/reserve players. But it's job done and now onto the play-offs.
It wasn't just us. Look at the results of the others in the play-off spots.
I have one worry in that under Bowyer we seem, so far, to have played in batches of three games: three good, thee poor, three good ant then another poor one. Let's hope this sequence doesn't continue.
Not a great performance but it didn't matter & I didn't care. I would much prefer to play Kaikai & Zyro in this game than get injuries to Mag & Ajosr & have to play the useless loanees against The Shrews or god forbid at Wembley. Palace fan on 606 tonight bemoaning the fact that they might lose Zaha & Loftus-Cheek next season - well they ate welcome to Kaikai as he is worse than useless. No point discussing any other players as the game was a meaningless friendly & I'm sure we will see a different mentality on thursday.
A couple of other points. Can't see what all the fuss was about re the traffic. Anyone who had trouble on the M62 must have travelled the wrong way. M6 is the route to Manchester. My only complaint was that there was miles & miles of 50 mph restricted speed areas with no roadworks or even cones on display. wtf was that all about ?
In answer to @NapaAddick's much earlier question.....we go because we follow our team - its in our blood. Doesn't matter that its 250 miles away & on tv. There is nothing like being there. Will be there thurs & (if I can get z ticket) next sun.
Finally - any idea if Kag can/will play next week? I hate KR with a passion for bringing in that Palace reject & sending KAG out on loan. I said on Jan 31 that KAG would score more than Zyro & Kaikai combined & I was right. fecking scouse git. Oxford are welcome to him. In Bowyer we trust.
Watched on TV, thought we went out just to do a job and not concede. I was disappointed with the performance and we were lucky not to be one down in the opening minutes when Henderson missed the open goal from inside the 6 yd box. Overall Dale just deserved to win what was a very poor game, but i think we were just going through the motions knowing there needed to be a 7 goal swing for us to screw it up. Now onto Thursday, changes will be made again and, with the exception of Page, I expect to see the same team that started against Blackburn last week. Can we beat Shrewsbury over two legs? Yes we can, but there needs to be a return to the football and energy shown against Pompey and Blackburn (not forgetting the performance against Shrewsbury and few weeks ago)
Journey from hell! Left home at 1.30 for a two hour journey and arrived at the ground at 6.25! Traffic was diverted over the Pennines and not one single copper or Highway Department official directing traffic between M62 and Rochdale, took me the best time of an hour and a half to travel 10 miles between M62 and Rochdale, with some well placed people directing traffic that could easily have been halved.....disgusting! Saw 45 mins of utter crap during which I saw a display from Zyro which approached the worst performance from a Charlton player I have ever witnessed. Nice to meet Addickted, Ben, el-pietro + his dad and ricky-otto....and Peter Gage I owe you a drink mate! Got home in less than two hours!
My only complaint was that there was miles & miles of 50 mph restricted speed areas with no roadworks or even cones on display. wtf was that all about ?
Welcome to Manchester. I've lived here since 2011 and can't remember a time when this "smart motorway upgrade" wasn't ongoing.
As for the game, I had a neutral friend with me at the ground and one watching on TV. The tv viewer complained of how low quality and dry the game was. The friend at the ground was thrilled with the end to end play and atmosphere. One of those games where we were there to have a good time regardless, I think.
Personal highlight was chants of "You're going down" almost immediately changing to "You're staying up" when their lad scored.
Plus my fiance's brother is a Dale fan, so at least now he'll be coming to wedding.
Disappointing that those on the periphry of the "normal team" didn't do much to give Bowyer a selection headache.
A lot of criticism about Zyro on here. I think he was pretty badly treated by Karl Robinson and almost Charltonised. He made a great impact at Peterborough away when he came on, scored a good "strikers" goal, Kermogantesque'. Since then, he's been in and out of the team, which does nobody no good. That said, I'd have hoped, if not for Charlton, that he'd have used this opportunity to get himself fully match fit, sharp and able to return to his parent club and fight for a place in the squad.
Kaikai on the other hand....... Not at all impressed, done one or two good things but generally from what I've seen, totally disinterested.
If you traveled 450 miles round trip to see that awful loss, do you feel good that you saw us make the playoffs, or bad at having to travel that distance to see such a performance?
It was a new ground for me and in a nice area, with a nice pub beforehand, good view (could stand at the back and see everything) so it was ok. But performance-wise, we were mainly pretty poor (especially up front).
Think Kaikai gets unfair treatment tbh, dunno if it's cos he's palace or what? He was nowhere near our worst player today, and actually had some decent moments. At away games I've been to he also seems to get singled out for abuse for performances way above the threshold for anyone else...
I've had a soft spot for Rochdale since some time probably in the '80s when they were so brasic they had to play five or six YTSs in the first team so I've no problems with them winning and staying up.
The ref was appalling and the assistant on our side was pretty useless, too.
I'm hopeful that the players were more concerned about not picking up an injury than putting themselves on the line 'cos there's no other excuse for that performance. Amos was the only one who really earned any brownie points although the post was just as good at keeping the ball out of the net!
There were a few occasions where Konsa had yards of space to race forward with the ball but he just didn't go for it. The one time he did make a great run (off the ball) in the 2nd half, Marshall didn't look up when he should've played Konsa in (Marshall then stood up a beautiful cross for Zyro's poor, mis-timed, looping header over the bar).
Thought Pearce was very good and generally the defence was ok. The one time Kakai looked like he'd got in behind Rochdale, he got pulled back (yellow card for matey). Thought he looked our most likely in the first half. Aribo was ok and tried to create.
2nd half petered out very quickly but changed as soon as Rochdale knew they had to win. On came the two subs, they went direct/diagonal and scored. What should've been a late siege from us ended up being an un-watchable bout of corner play by Rochdale.
Our set-pieces were ordinary. Marshall's appalling effort straight at the wall in the 1st half was grim. JFK had a better effort narrowly over from the right.
It did look a 100% foul on Reeves late on.
Amos continues to play well. His claiming of high balls has improved a lot.
The pitch, although well grassed, didn't help the game flow. It was slow and bobbly.
Excellent to reach the play offs. Rochdale missed a sitter but after opening flurry. Charlton looked a lot better. Second half Rochdale made some good subs & pushed forward. Charlton looking relaxed as Plymouth were getting turned over, & took the foot off the pedal. With JFC off & Reeves on Charlton midfield looked much poorer.
If Charlton had needed anything from the game, the performance would have been much better. Don’t mind Rochdale staying up as they have spent a lot if time in Div 4 / league 3. They definitely wanted the game more.
Good for Mavidi to get some more time on the pitch after his injury. Zyro was really poor & Kaikai was in the game more than usual but wasn’t much good either. Not sure if it is lack of confidence / interest or bit of both. Good for Bowyer to give these players a chance & rest others. Also because the parent clubs can see why these players are not regular starters.
Excellent to see Johnnie Jackson reach 499 appearances.
I really like Lee Bowyer’s down to earth straight forward, uncomplicated & sensible approach. His post match comments were spot on again.
The Charlton support were brilliant & could be heard loud & strong throughout the match. A credit to the club.
result aside - what a day and night. Top drawer support again. Good to meet up with some lifers: @el-pietro and his dad, @SoundAsa£@HandG@Addickted and son and @PeterGage. And also a non lifer....Mr Mark Marshall, who I saw when I was leaving the Ratcliffe Bar at about 8pm.
First beer at 6.30am and last one at 3am - feeling a little bit tender at the moment!!
The performance was pretty dire, but it didn’t matter in the end. Zyro and Kaikai were absolute blige. Konsa needs to start having a shot - couple of times yesterday and last week he got in to shooting range and wasted it - not his job to score, but have a crack son. And we should have had a penalty.
1. We wont score enough goals to win playoffs, 2. We need to get out of this division at all costs 3. Football needs to look at the rule surrounding keeping the ball in the corner and obstruction.
No. 1. Totally agree and only the most die-hard Addick could fail to disagree. A failing we have had all season and why should anything change over the next two games? No. 2. Again, agree but how do we do that? Certainly not with the mad Belgian at the helm. No. 3. Pointless statement, ALL teams do this -remember a certain Tony Watt's escapade? I know it can be frustrating but (and it's a big but) if we are 1-0 up at Wembley with one minute to go and Marshall has the ball in the corner flag 'D' I know what 35,000 Charlton fans will expect him to do!
100 %. Both are crap (well especially Kaikai), Zyro like Bambi on ice. No upper body strength, poor timing in the air and no physical presence whatsoever - a 5th rate Pete Crouch.
Made it as far as Mills Hill station, a few miles south of Rochdale. Train got mashed by local youth throwing something at it when it was going st 60mph. Police and ambulance called. That was after closure of Victoria underground station because of a fire, taxi getting stuck in traffic, a run to Charing X station, only just making train from Euston, signal failure outside Stockport, trams delayed to Manchester Victoria, missing the last two trains from Manchester Victoria that would have got me to Rochdale in time, and the train I did catch being delayed by 15 minutes and then being hit by concrete. Don’t worry about me, the mental scars will heal, given time. I’m never going to go to Rochdale ever again. My Mrs said I was mad to go in the first place.
Did we win? Did I miss anything? Are we still in the playoffs?
"But apart from that did you enjoy the play Mrs Lincoln?" (One for the history buffs). Christ, just how many mirrors did you break and how many black cats did you run over? I'd start the trip to Wembley now if I was you!
After securing a place in the play offs can’t be bothered to get to critical about our performance.
Positives for me were Konsa got forward really well, it’s something which he has received a lot of criticism for. I thought Aribo showed some lovely touches. Not really many other positives apart from that.
onwards we go - the game clearly died in 2nd half when Charlton knew they were through at half-time. They clearly only went through the motions for most of the second half trying to avoid injuries and bookings. My worry is the lack of creativity and goals, as people already have mentioned- its the scenario when we go 1 down that is going to be the problem as it has been all season. Anyway, i'm celebrating my birthday today with looking forward to the playoffs. Thursday has me and @addickfanatic coming up from Lux, stopping off in Dusseldorf to pick up two of the German Addicks (Marc and son Noah) and then heading for The Valley - its Ascension day holidays in most of Europe, so, a long holiday weekend in store hopefully taking in Shrewsbury on Sunday.
Saw most of the second half in the Orpington CC bar, graciously put on by the Millwall barmaid after a bit of derision
I think you're all being tough on Zyro. He prefers the ball on the deck. A game that's played mostly in the air by a half-arsed team saving its energy is not for him. He had absolutely no service. I still think he can do a job in the playoffs. He's obviously a good finisher. He just needs chances.
Saw most of the second half in the Orpington CC bar, graciously put on by the Millwall barmaid after a bit of derision
I think you're all being tough on Zyro. He prefers the ball on the deck. A game that's played mostly in the air by a half-arsed team saving its energy is not for him. He had absolutely no service. I still think he can do a job in the playoffs. He's obviously a good finisher. He just needs chances.
Kaikai however...nah
But he was shit on the deck too, awful first touch.
I get it that first team shoo-ins were never going to go for broke once Plymouth had imploded, but what are loanees like Zyro hoping to happen either this season or next? Great loans on paper (Zyro, Steph, Kaikai) have been a huge disappointment, yet they give the impression they don't give a stuff whether we or they make Wembley, or their careers generally. Contrast that with Neil Heaney in '98, who kept a starting place because he delivered and cared.
Fortunately Ajose and Mag ARE up for it, and hopefully Tariq and Page will play at least one of the Shrews games.
As for the day/game itself, I guess I should have known better not to have suggested slogging up there, once it became likely that we'd get a performance and line-up like that.
Had a quick peek on the Shrewsbury forum, and it seems that most of them believe they have shot their bolt, and have already peaked - generally quite pessimistic about their chances.
Had a quick peek on the Shrewsbury forum, and it seems that most of them believe they have shot their bolt, and have already peaked - generally quite pessimistic about their chances.
Not a great performance but it didn't matter & I didn't care. I would much prefer to play Kaikai & Zyro in this game than get injuries to Mag & Ajosr & have to play the useless loanees against The Shrews or god forbid at Wembley. Palace fan on 606 tonight bemoaning the fact that they might lose Zaha & Loftus-Cheek next season - well they ate welcome to Kaikai as he is worse than useless. No point discussing any other players as the game was a meaningless friendly & I'm sure we will see a different mentality on thursday.
A couple of other points. Can't see what all the fuss was about re the traffic. Anyone who had trouble on the M62 must have travelled the wrong way. M6 is the route to Manchester. My only complaint was that there was miles & miles of 50 mph restricted speed areas with no roadworks or even cones on display. wtf was that all about ?
In answer to @NapaAddick's much earlier question.....we go because we follow our team - its in our blood. Doesn't matter that its 250 miles away & on tv. There is nothing like being there. Will be there thurs & (if I can get z ticket) next sun.
Finally - any idea if Kag can/will play next week? I hate KR with a passion for bringing in that Palace reject & sending KAG out on loan. I said on Jan 31 that KAG would score more than Zyro & Kaikai combined & I was right. fecking scouse git. Oxford are welcome to him. In Bowyer we trust.
Comments
I was happy Rochdale stayed up after their great cup run. Keith Hill seems a decent bloke too, and their goalscorer today was Joe Thompson, who's had two cancer scares.
Too many non performers who you would think should be staking a claim for a play off / final place. Very disappointed and gutted for the travelling hoards who done their doe to watch that crap. Play like that in the semis and we are done for. Still at least the Douchbag will have to take a haircut.
See you at Shrewsbury.
Not a great performance but it didn't matter & I didn't care. I would much prefer to play Kaikai & Zyro in this game than get injuries to Mag & Ajosr & have to play the useless loanees against The Shrews or god forbid at Wembley. Palace fan on 606 tonight bemoaning the fact that they might lose Zaha & Loftus-Cheek next season - well they ate welcome to Kaikai as he is worse than useless. No point discussing any other players as the game was a meaningless friendly & I'm sure we will see a different mentality on thursday.
A couple of other points. Can't see what all the fuss was about re the traffic. Anyone who had trouble on the M62 must have travelled the wrong way. M6 is the route to Manchester. My only complaint was that there was miles & miles of 50 mph restricted speed areas with no roadworks or even cones on display. wtf was that all about ?
In answer to @NapaAddick's much earlier question.....we go because we follow our team - its in our blood. Doesn't matter that its 250 miles away & on tv. There is nothing like being there. Will be there thurs & (if I can get z ticket) next sun.
Finally - any idea if Kag can/will play next week? I hate KR with a passion for bringing in that Palace reject & sending KAG out on loan. I said on Jan 31 that KAG would score more than Zyro & Kaikai combined & I was right. fecking scouse git. Oxford are welcome to him. In Bowyer we trust.
It wasn't just us. Look at the results of the others in the play-off spots.
I have one worry in that under Bowyer we seem, so far, to have played in batches of three games: three good, thee poor, three good ant then another poor one. Let's hope this sequence doesn't continue.
Left home at 1.30 for a two hour journey and arrived at the ground at 6.25!
Traffic was diverted over the Pennines and not one single copper or Highway Department official directing traffic between M62 and Rochdale, took me the best time of an hour and a half to travel 10 miles between M62 and Rochdale, with some well placed people directing traffic that could easily have been halved.....disgusting!
Saw 45 mins of utter crap during which I saw a display from Zyro which approached the worst performance from a Charlton player I have ever witnessed.
Nice to meet Addickted, Ben, el-pietro + his dad and ricky-otto....and Peter Gage I owe you a drink mate!
Got home in less than two hours!
As for the game, I had a neutral friend with me at the ground and one watching on TV. The tv viewer complained of how low quality and dry the game was. The friend at the ground was thrilled with the end to end play and atmosphere. One of those games where we were there to have a good time regardless, I think.
Personal highlight was chants of "You're going down" almost immediately changing to "You're staying up" when their lad scored.
Plus my fiance's brother is a Dale fan, so at least now he'll be coming to wedding.
Disappointing that those on the periphry of the "normal team" didn't do much to give Bowyer a selection headache.
A lot of criticism about Zyro on here. I think he was pretty badly treated by Karl Robinson and almost Charltonised. He made a great impact at Peterborough away when he came on, scored a good "strikers" goal, Kermogantesque'. Since then, he's been in and out of the team, which does nobody no good. That said, I'd have hoped, if not for Charlton, that he'd have used this opportunity to get himself fully match fit, sharp and able to return to his parent club and fight for a place in the squad.
Kaikai on the other hand....... Not at all impressed, done one or two good things but generally from what I've seen, totally disinterested.
Zyro on the other hand is complete cack.
The ref was appalling and the assistant on our side was pretty useless, too.
I'm hopeful that the players were more concerned about not picking up an injury than putting themselves on the line 'cos there's no other excuse for that performance. Amos was the only one who really earned any brownie points although the post was just as good at keeping the ball out of the net!
Thought Pearce was very good and generally the defence was ok. The one time Kakai looked like he'd got in behind Rochdale, he got pulled back (yellow card for matey). Thought he looked our most likely in the first half. Aribo was ok and tried to create.
2nd half petered out very quickly but changed as soon as Rochdale knew they had to win. On came the two subs, they went direct/diagonal and scored. What should've been a late siege from us ended up being an un-watchable bout of corner play by Rochdale.
Our set-pieces were ordinary. Marshall's appalling effort straight at the wall in the 1st half was grim. JFK had a better effort narrowly over from the right.
It did look a 100% foul on Reeves late on.
Amos continues to play well. His claiming of high balls has improved a lot.
The pitch, although well grassed, didn't help the game flow. It was slow and bobbly.
If Charlton had needed anything from the game, the performance would have been much better. Don’t mind Rochdale staying up as they have spent a lot if time in Div 4 / league 3. They definitely wanted the game more.
Good for Mavidi to get some more time on the pitch after his injury. Zyro was really poor & Kaikai was in the game more than usual but wasn’t much good either. Not sure if it is lack of confidence / interest or bit of both. Good for Bowyer to give these players a chance & rest others. Also because the parent clubs can see why these players are not regular starters.
Excellent to see Johnnie Jackson reach 499 appearances.
I really like Lee Bowyer’s down to earth straight forward, uncomplicated & sensible approach. His post match comments were spot on again.
The Charlton support were brilliant & could be heard loud & strong throughout the match. A credit to the club.
Onwards & forwards to the playoffs.
First beer at 6.30am and last one at 3am - feeling a little bit tender at the moment!!
The performance was pretty dire, but it didn’t matter in the end. Zyro and Kaikai were absolute blige. Konsa needs to start having a shot - couple of times yesterday and last week he got in to shooting range and wasted it - not his job to score, but have a crack son. And we should have had a penalty.
Glad to see Jackson get on at the end.
Roll on Thursday.
No. 2. Again, agree but how do we do that? Certainly not with the mad Belgian at the helm.
No. 3. Pointless statement, ALL teams do this -remember a certain Tony Watt's escapade? I know it can be frustrating but (and it's a big but) if we are 1-0 up at Wembley with one minute to go and Marshall has the ball in the corner flag 'D' I know what 35,000 Charlton fans will expect him to do!
Positives for me were Konsa got forward really well, it’s something which he has received a lot of criticism for. I thought Aribo showed some lovely touches. Not really many other positives apart from that.
My worry is the lack of creativity and goals, as people already have mentioned- its the scenario when we go 1 down that is going to be the problem as it has been all season.
Anyway, i'm celebrating my birthday today with looking forward to the playoffs.
Thursday has me and @addickfanatic coming up from Lux, stopping off in Dusseldorf to pick up two of the German Addicks (Marc and son Noah) and then heading for The Valley - its Ascension day holidays in most of Europe, so, a long holiday weekend in store hopefully taking in Shrewsbury on Sunday.
I think you're all being tough on Zyro. He prefers the ball on the deck. A game that's played mostly in the air by a half-arsed team saving its energy is not for him. He had absolutely no service. I still think he can do a job in the playoffs. He's obviously a good finisher. He just needs chances.
Kaikai however...nah
Fortunately Ajose and Mag ARE up for it, and hopefully Tariq and Page will play at least one of the Shrews games.
As for the day/game itself, I guess I should have known better not to have suggested slogging up there, once it became likely that we'd get a performance and line-up like that.