aka 'shit mode', if you're me. Or 'shoring it up mode' if you're a masochist.
I'm probably a bit tough on Darren Pratley and he's not personally responsible for us repeatedly sitting on a lead, taking off an attacking player, and basically declaring the innings, but for all that he can tackle, he really can't move very fast, or pass. Bringing him on is like saying 'ok, you have the ball, we're done attacking'. It means we're highly unlikely to score again in the game, unless something crazy happens, like Pratley himself deciding to play striker for ten seconds. Well done on that, by the way.
But this isn't about Pratley at all, because we all know that scared mode pre-dates him. It pre-dates Bowyer. It seems hardwired into the soul of Charlton - we will rarely go for the throat, and in fact, there's no 2-0 lead that can't be spiced up by going 2-1 for the last few minutes. But few espouse scared mode as religiously as Bowyer does. A pragmatist, which has many advantages, except when his good work has us in a winning position. For that is when Bowyer goes from an inspirational manager to a sort of pain master.
I don't know. I guess he knows best! But I think we'd be SO much better if we didn't invite the opposition onto us when we're ahead.
Or is the Charlton way impossible to avoid - is this simply just what we do?
We *needed* to score at two points in the match today. At 0-0, and at 1-3. It took us a combined total of two minutes to score on both occasions. We're pretty good when we need to score. When we're level, or losing. When there's no alternative. But give us stick or twist, and we'll stick ourselves good and proper. Why?
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do tonight
41212 was being exploited for half an hour and they’d have walked that if we’d kept it the same.
352 kept us in the game, Okay we had to
sit back but to be honest we never looked in any danger until they scored from the corner.
Donny were fantastic and countered us all over the pitch, the only way we were winning that was by keeping ourselves in it, and that’s what we did.
Taylor, Parker and Aribo all very poor today.
Seriously though, 'we never looked in any danger until they scored' - yeah, twice - the fact is that Donny never looked in any danger either, and we only scored when we had to. The change in formation did not shore us up, it invited Donny onto us even more after a first half relatively even in terms of attacking play