Coming very late to this but what an exhilarating performance and a tremendous outcome in leapfrogging Pompey and Sunderland. You’d have got long odds on that before kick off.
Rochdale were passive opponents, who were fearful of pressing us high but it merely allowed Sarr and others to effectively probe from the back and set up a succession of dangerous attacks. Our midfield totally dominated the game - as they have most games recently - and, in Cullen, Aribo and Bielik, we have players who are absolutely out of the top drawer. Allied to that, we had Albie Morgan, who looks one hell of a prospect. His pass for Lyle’s goal was sublime, although he gave all of us notice of his potential when Lee Bowyer introduced him at half time back in the August Shrewsbury match, when he helped turn the game. Another one off the quite outstanding Steve Avory & Co assembly line.
Up front, Lyle Taylor was his usual magnificent self and tormented The Dale throughout. Apart from his goalscoring prowess and great leadership qualities, he is by some distance, the best crosser of the ball in the club. Parker worked hard and has decent pace and physicality, but his touch is poor and, technically speaking, he is not at the level of his teammates. A couple of good efforts on goal but a poor miss, which was a great shame, as a goal would have really helped his confidence (as Ted Hastings would put it - “Mother of God - does that fella need a goal”).
Let’s hope that Williams and Vetokele are fit for next Sunday, that Taylor and Beliek are fine after their knocks and that we avoid injuries this week in training. We really do need Igor fit and firing to ease the burden on Lyle in the next three games.
Lee Bowyer won’t let the team underestimate Donny, although the 15 point gap reflects the fact that we are the better team - just as Shrewsbury were last season when they finished 16 or so points ahead of us. We have some exceptional players and, whilst any team is capable of an off day, the quality we have should see us making our way to Wembley in three weeks time.
Whatever happens from here on in, what an achievement by Lee Bowyer and his management team. A skeleton squad and no permanent contract for Lee at the start of the season and the idiotic sale of Karlan Grant in January for relative peanuts (as Jermaine Jeans observed on Match of The Day 2, “hopefully Huddersfield will be able to hold onto him”). All those hurdles, together with a lack of any meaningful support from Duchatelet, have been overcome and we have seen some quality football, which has got progressively better and better towards the end of the season. Against all odds, we could find ourselves in the Championship next season - under, we can only pray, new owners.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
What the Dickens: The problem is we have a right Charlie of an owner and we may just be left with bitter sweet memories.
Sam, did you realise "A Tale of Two Cities" was first serialised in two provincial newspapers? It was the Bicester Times, it was the Worcester Times.
All loan spells come to an end and many are for the benefit of young players who need experience.Bielic and Cullen are premiership players in the making.Purrington is a stand in until Page is fit and Maxwell has not played.No one knows what at this moment in time will happen to the likes of Aribo,Bauer,and others out of contract,or even Bowyer.Football is all about mights,if this had gone in ,if we had won this .All clubs will be saying the same.I prefer to take the glass half full attitude rather than the half empty.We could have paid 500,000 for a striker
Hmm. So we are getting to see the premiership stars of the future.
No, we don't know what will happen to players and managers nearly out of contract.
I'm so excited that RD may change his mind and put money and executive infrastructure into place to ensure a successful campaign next year, despite his years of alternating micromanagement and absence, selling key players at key moments. Promotion would be a key moment. On previous form that indicates a sale of any asset that has gained in value recently. My glass is definitely more than half empty on that one.
I share your concern that we may lose some key players,and indeed past form indicates that may be the case,but is this not the situation all clubs at our level are in.Since Bowyer has been in charge,as far as we all know the interference level has not been in evidence(Dont forget Grant could have said he did not want to go).I may be misguided ,in my old age,but should we get promoted ,with the present atmosphere at the club between management ,players and fans,this season could be a turning point in our history,As I said earlier,the lack of signings in January has worked in our favour.Hope to see a full house on the 17th.
I think having skim read some posts just about everything has been covered in this thread.
What I found interesting though was pre-match I was in Crossbars and joined by a group of 4 Norwegians at my table, got talking to them and found it quite insightful to the thinking and how / what brought them to Charlton for the day.
They said they don't find football interesting in Norway and instead they all follow English football and don't really follow anybody in the Norwegian league. They fly over from Norway to Stanstead airport arriving on a Friday and will look to go to a game each day over the weekend including Friday night if there's a game on in the area they've flown to. Today they've gone to see Brentford v Preston and fly back home tomorrow.
They actually thought the beer prices in Crossbars was quite reasonable given how expensive it is to drink in Norway and were very complimentary of The Valley in general they said they felt very welcome and were also interested in going to the play off home leg which being on a Friday night they might well do now I guess.
They even had the Blackpool ticket stubs on them from the previous game they saw in case they couldn't get tickets as one of them likes Leeds in particular and one game couldn't get tickets due to restricted sale. The same guy also mentioned how he had also once been to Stamford Bridge back in the bad old days to see Chelsea v Leeds. They asked who our biggest rivals were and who in my opinion were the most horrible club in London, to which I answered Millwall to both and explained to the guy that a Millwall v Charlton game probably wouldn't be too dissimilar to a Chelsea v Leeds game, they are generally ground hopping around London and will probably avoid Millwall now lol.
They were quite fascinated to hear that i'd been to 65 grounds and they asked which had the best atmosphere i'd been to. Genuinely a difficult question but I said Sunderland based on where i'd been to and is genuinely a fantastic atmosphere when it's a buzzing full house, I saw us lose 3-2 there in the Prem years and the atmosphere was rocking that day. They had been to Newcastle before so might do Sunderland now too.
Completely not related to the match itself I know but i'm glad we put on such a performance for the Norwegians. I was genuinely surprised how as a club we still have quite a pull with football fans abroad. They come over quite a lot for business apparently and also said they'd like to see us get promoted not only so 1 of them would get to see us play Leeds but also so they could entertain business clients too - a lot easier to do when playing the likes of Leeds instead of Rochdale.
Sometimes when you feel RD has completely destroyed the club it's occasions like these that still give a ray of hope for when he does eventually leave.
I've seen a lot of foreign fans at The Valley this season. Quite a few Scandanavians and Germans but also some Italians and Spanish. Saw some Germans yesterday.
The Valley is an easy location and easy to get tickets, so it's a no brainier for footy tourists. They can't get tickets for Chelsea etc, so watch Fulham, Charlton and no doubt Millwall, QPR etc.
And some, probably French, Francophones yesterday, too.
There were people speaking Portuguese behind me in the LN. They sounded like they were enjoying it and one of them was translating the chants for the others
How have we got to a situation where we are the form team going into the play offs and our manager, who has performed miracles, is without a contract at the end of the month?
Oh yes, Belgian numpty who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
How have we got to a situation where we are the form team going into the play offs and our manager, who has performed miracles, is without a contract at the end of the month?
Oh yes, Belgian numpty who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
He's a Belgian and a numpty but I think you mean the price of nothing and value of nothing: Yann £400k, Polish Pete £800k. Gomez £3.5m. 3.5 fecking million fecking pounds for a future England star if not captain! Grant - leading scorer - £1.5m to a premiership club.
You could see why Rochdale have let in 87 goals this season! I couldn't believe that they kept playing such a high line, as all it took was one pass to split them open, again and again!
Interesting that our first choice keeper and back 4 is now
Phillips Djiksteel Bauer Sarr Purrington
Other than Bauer, I doubt anyone would have expected that at the start of the season!
A good point made on the Quest show (which I finally got round to watching last night)
Normally the team finishing 3rd is a bit down because they got pipped to the automatics, but that doesn't apply to us. Instead it's the teams in 4th and 5th which to an extent threw it away, while we're the team finishing the season strongly and with great team spirit. Indeed Doncaster will probably be happier than Pompey and Sunderland at the moment too.
I share your concern that we may lose some key players,and indeed past form indicates that may be the case,but is this not the situation all clubs at our level are in.Since Bowyer has been in charge,as far as we all know the interference level has not been in evidence(Dont forget Grant could have said he did not want to go).I may be misguided ,in my old age,but should we get promoted ,with the present atmosphere at the club between management ,players and fans,this season could be a turning point in our history,As I said earlier,the lack of signings in January has worked in our favour.Hope to see a full house on the 17th.
It is usual for lower league clubs to lose out to divisions above after a performing season. I think it is not so usual for a club to sell it's key players and lose it's manager after a promotion, and that is what I am afraid of.
great win typical i wanted us to finish 3rd so i could make both the games, then due to sunderland's poxy run the games got switched meaning i miss both, on a side note i see sunderland gave pompey 2000 bit of a pisstake as thats 4% of the ground - hopefully pompey give them 716 back.
i don't fear any of the playoff teams as it is very much in our hands, my prediction is get a 0-0 up there and then do them at home, at them from the off crowd behind us we can do it.
great win typical i wanted us to finish 3rd so i could make both the games, then due to sunderland's poxy run the games got switched meaning i miss both, on a side note i see sunderland gave pompey 2000 bit of a pisstake as thats 4% of the ground - hopefully pompey give them 716 back.
i don't fear any of the playoff teams as it is very much in our hands, my prediction is get a 0-0 up there and then do them at home, at them from the off crowd behind us we can do it.
Our attack is our defence, good though our actual defence is, so we should have at them up there and try to get the job done. “Lay on, Lyle Taylor, and damned be him who first cries ‘Hold, enough!’”.
Pretty confident Pompey will beat perennial bottlers Sunderland. Fancy us to dispose of Donny over 2 legs. A Pompey/Addicks final will be tight low scoring. Hope it doesn't go to pens.
had a quick look; capacity allocation given to the away team charlton 27,111 3135 doncaster 15.231 3001 ( 3800 if required ) pompey 21,100 1400 ( 2800 if required ) sunderland 49,000 2000 - with no extra given
if pompey do not sell that out then fair play but really is a huge piss take by sunderland yet themselves seem to be the leeds of geordie land complaining about never getting enough tickets and "taking over" grounds.
had a quick look; capacity allocation given to the away team charlton 27,111 3135 doncaster 15.231 3001 ( 3800 if required ) pompey 21,100 1400 ( 2800 if required ) sunderland 49,000 2000 - with no extra given
if pompey do not sell that out then fair play but really is a huge piss take by sunderland yet themselves seem to be the leeds of geordie land complaining about never getting enough tickets and "taking over" grounds.
Sunderland give some of the top tier to away fans. Pompey caused problems recently, a flare going into the fans below, amongst other stuff. Coventry fans were throwing coins & bags of piss & shit at the Sunderland fans. I'm pretty sure that's why the numbers are limited.
had a quick look; capacity allocation given to the away team charlton 27,111 3135 doncaster 15.231 3001 ( 3800 if required ) pompey 21,100 1400 ( 2800 if required ) sunderland 49,000 2000 - with no extra given
if pompey do not sell that out then fair play but really is a huge piss take by sunderland yet themselves seem to be the leeds of geordie land complaining about never getting enough tickets and "taking over" grounds.
Sunderland give some of the top tier to away fans. Pompey caused problems recently, a flare going into the fans below, amongst other stuff. Coventry fans were throwing coins & bags of piss & shit at the Sunderland fans. I'm pretty sure that's why the numbers are limited.
I don't understand how those incidents weren't sorted out at the time. They have stewards and police and CCTV to arrest the offenders.
Hated that upper tier away section at the SoL, you're so remote from the players
had a quick look; capacity allocation given to the away team charlton 27,111 3135 doncaster 15.231 3001 ( 3800 if required ) pompey 21,100 1400 ( 2800 if required ) sunderland 49,000 2000 - with no extra given
if pompey do not sell that out then fair play but really is a huge piss take by sunderland yet themselves seem to be the leeds of geordie land complaining about never getting enough tickets and "taking over" grounds.
Sunderland give some of the top tier to away fans. Pompey caused problems recently, a flare going into the fans below, amongst other stuff. Coventry fans were throwing coins & bags of piss & shit at the Sunderland fans. I'm pretty sure that's why the numbers are limited.
I don't understand how those incidents weren't sorted out at the time. They have stewards and police and CCTV to arrest the offenders.
Hated that upper tier away section at the SoL, you're so remote from the players
Apparently the stewards and police just stood and watched.
had a quick look; capacity allocation given to the away team charlton 27,111 3135 doncaster 15.231 3001 ( 3800 if required ) pompey 21,100 1400 ( 2800 if required ) sunderland 49,000 2000 - with no extra given
if pompey do not sell that out then fair play but really is a huge piss take by sunderland yet themselves seem to be the leeds of geordie land complaining about never getting enough tickets and "taking over" grounds.
Sunderland give some of the top tier to away fans. Pompey caused problems recently, a flare going into the fans below, amongst other stuff. Coventry fans were throwing coins & bags of piss & shit at the Sunderland fans. I'm pretty sure that's why the numbers are limited.
Is that combined bags of piss and shit or separate bags? (you know, one bag for piss the other bag for.....)
Comments
Rochdale were passive opponents, who were fearful of pressing us high but it merely allowed Sarr and others to effectively probe from the back and set up a succession of dangerous attacks. Our midfield totally dominated the game - as they have most games recently - and, in Cullen, Aribo and Bielik, we have players who are absolutely out of the top drawer. Allied to that, we had Albie Morgan, who looks one hell of a prospect. His pass for Lyle’s goal was sublime, although he gave all of us notice of his potential when Lee Bowyer introduced him at half time back in the August Shrewsbury match, when he helped turn the game. Another one off the quite outstanding Steve Avory & Co assembly line.
Up front, Lyle Taylor was his usual magnificent self and tormented The Dale throughout. Apart from his goalscoring prowess and great leadership qualities, he is by some distance, the best crosser of the ball in the club. Parker worked hard and has decent pace and physicality, but his touch is poor and, technically speaking, he is not at the level of his teammates. A couple of good efforts on goal but a poor miss, which was a great shame, as a goal would have really helped his confidence (as Ted Hastings would put it - “Mother of God - does that fella need a goal”).
Let’s hope that Williams and Vetokele are fit for next Sunday, that Taylor and Beliek are fine after their knocks and that we avoid injuries this week in training. We really do need Igor fit and firing to ease the burden on Lyle in the next three games.
Lee Bowyer won’t let the team underestimate Donny, although the 15 point gap reflects the fact that we are the better team - just as Shrewsbury were last season when they finished 16 or so points ahead of us. We have some exceptional players and, whilst any team is capable of an off day, the quality we have should see us making our way to Wembley in three weeks time.
Whatever happens from here on in, what an achievement by Lee Bowyer and his management team. A skeleton squad and no permanent contract for Lee at the start of the season and the idiotic sale of Karlan Grant in January for relative peanuts (as Jermaine Jeans observed on Match of The Day 2, “hopefully Huddersfield will be able to hold onto him”). All those hurdles, together with a lack of any meaningful support from Duchatelet, have been overcome and we have seen some quality football, which has got progressively better and better towards the end of the season. Against all odds, we could find ourselves in the Championship next season - under, we can only pray, new owners.
On to the Keepmoat.
No, we don't know what will happen to players and managers nearly out of contract.
I'm so excited that RD may change his mind and put money and executive infrastructure into place to ensure a successful campaign next year, despite his years of alternating micromanagement and absence, selling key players at key moments. Promotion would be a key moment. On previous form that indicates a sale of any asset that has gained in value recently. My glass is definitely more than half empty on that one.
Oh yes, Belgian numpty who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Interesting that our first choice keeper and back 4 is now
Phillips
Djiksteel Bauer Sarr Purrington
Other than Bauer, I doubt anyone would have expected that at the start of the season!
Normally the team finishing 3rd is a bit down because they got pipped to the automatics, but that doesn't apply to us. Instead it's the teams in 4th and 5th which to an extent threw it away, while we're the team finishing the season strongly and with great team spirit. Indeed Doncaster will probably be happier than Pompey and Sunderland at the moment too.
i don't fear any of the playoff teams as it is very much in our hands, my prediction is get a 0-0 up there and then do them at home, at them from the off crowd behind us we can do it.
Fancy us to dispose of Donny over 2 legs.
A Pompey/Addicks final will be tight low scoring.
Hope it doesn't go to pens.
capacity allocation given to the away team
charlton 27,111 3135
doncaster 15.231 3001 ( 3800 if required )
pompey 21,100 1400 ( 2800 if required )
sunderland 49,000 2000 - with no extra given
if pompey do not sell that out then fair play but really is a huge piss take by sunderland yet themselves seem to be the leeds of geordie land complaining about never getting enough tickets and "taking over" grounds.
Pompey caused problems recently, a flare going into the fans below, amongst other stuff.
Coventry fans were throwing coins & bags of piss & shit at the Sunderland fans.
I'm pretty sure that's why the numbers are limited.
Hated that upper tier away section at the SoL, you're so remote from the players
Is that combined bags of piss and shit or separate bags? (you know, one bag for piss the other bag for.....)