Our concentration before half time lets us down time and time again! Both our doing and bad luck (like Stockton's foul on Clare when they received a corner) but why is it always so predictable from that point!?
Henderson would have saved that if he had stayed on his line.
I feel slightly embarrassed about driving four hours from Kent to watch that performance, but at least I can now say I'm part of our "301 club" having witnessed this decade's Dagenham debacle. Fortunately I could crash back at my place in Nottingham ahead of work today!
I don't really know where to start with last night... We're so toothless up front though. We actually looked threatening at the start of the first half when sliding balls across the six-yard box or driving towards the byline and cutting the ball back but we still never look like scoring. Set-pieces are still a joke. Everything else was just off - poor decision-making again, passes behind or too far in front of players. The lack of urgency was a concern as well - even after we'd scored with ten minutes to go, the players didn't look as if they were chasing an equaliser and trying to snatch a point.
Leko is incredibly frustrating to watch - he tore Sunderland a new one at wing-back before getting injured and he's never hit the heights of that performance since. He looks scared playing up front and quite clueless about his role. He looks to play it off quickly more often than not, with some situations requiring him to hold the ball up. He's one of many players who pretty much always pick the wrong option.
The most worrying aspect of the display was how little the players seemed to react to the situation or the criticism from the away supporters. We were pretty close to the action in our stand to the side of the pitch - there was very little communication or shouting amongst the players when going behind, outside of Famewo constantly moaning at CBT for not getting onto his over-hit passes. One bloke shouted at Clare (who along with Dobson can say they actually put a performance in) to call for the ball - he turned around and gestured "what!?" DJ also got into a discussion with one supporter after the second goal but his demeanour seemed to suggest he wasn't fussed and there was a general acceptance that they weren't playing well and maybe couldn't be bothered.
Our concentration before half time lets us down time and time again! Both our doing and bad luck (like Stockton's foul on Clare when they received a corner) but why is it always so predictable from that point!?
Henderson would have saved that if he had stayed on his line.
Got to see the irony of this comment, no offence towards you Mendonca
How often has MacGillivray been moaned at for doing just this.
Our concentration before half time lets us down time and time again! Both our doing and bad luck (like Stockton's foul on Clare when they received a corner) but why is it always so predictable from that point!?
Henderson would have saved that if he had stayed on his line.
Got to see the irony of this comment, no offence towards you Mendonca
How often has MacGillivray been moaned at for doing just this.
Yeh, I noticed that. Talk about the exception proving the rule. I'm one of those who prefers my goalie to come and claim, but that means claim not flounder. Gilly would have saved that for sure
Our concentration before half time lets us down time and time again! Both our doing and bad luck (like Stockton's foul on Clare when they received a corner) but why is it always so predictable from that point!?
Henderson would have saved that if he had stayed on his line.
Got to see the irony of this comment, no offence towards you Mendonca
How often has MacGillivray been moaned at for doing just this.
Henderson didn't have the best of games, but to blame him for both goals when our defenders look like a bunch of Tussauds waxworks is wrong
Our concentration before half time lets us down time and time again! Both our doing and bad luck (like Stockton's foul on Clare when they received a corner) but why is it always so predictable from that point!?
Henderson would have saved that if he had stayed on his line.
Got to see the irony of this comment, no offence towards you Mendonca
How often has MacGillivray been moaned at for doing just this.
Henderson didn't have the best of games, but to blame him for both goals when our defenders look like a bunch of Tussauds waxworks is wrong
Trouble is they were standard saves for him to make.
Maybe the Crewe striker did well to force Henderson to spill the shot for the first goal - But think Henderson has to take as much blame as the defence do for the goals last night.
Like @RedChaser I was fortunate to be home 20 mins after I left the ground and followed the coach towards the M6 - massive kudos to the traveling faithfull who had come up from the south, I hope you had a safe and not too long a journey home.
The performance was abject by pretty much everyone and it's hard to pick out the worst although Famewo and DJ would be in the running. Famewo looked like he didn't want to be there and had a right strop on, especially with Blackett-Taylor. A couple of his passes that were impossible for BT to latch on to were followed by a tirade from Famewo - learn to fucking pass then. DJ also got a strop on just before half-time and was getting some stick from the fans that he didn't seem to agree with. My eldest shouted out "DJ, give a shit" which was met with a roll of his eyes. How the fuck he started the second half is beyond me.
Crewe were shit, it's just that we were shitter! If the equaliser had stood then it would have been an injustice.
If TS is serious in his ambitions then there needs to be a massive clear out in the summer - along the lines of SCP's pre-season when we won promotion.
P.S. The ref was the worst I've seen - Kettle and Stroud by comparison should be on the Prem list.
I'd suggest we look at simplifying things in our next games.
Wing backs aren't working without a big man for them to deliver to.
That’s the problem with no Stockley who let’s not forget has his detractors amongst the fan base. Man City cope admirably without a target man but we can only dream of having players of that quality.
Who was it who said ‘One man doesn’t make a team’? It shouldn’t but in our case Stockley certainly does at the moment.
It wouldn't be an issue if our manager changed the formation when we're playing without the man it's built for.
Our concentration before half time lets us down time and time again! Both our doing and bad luck (like Stockton's foul on Clare when they received a corner) but why is it always so predictable from that point!?
Henderson would have saved that if he had stayed on his line.
Got to see the irony of this comment, no offence towards you Mendonca
How often has MacGillivray been moaned at for doing just this.
Yeh, I noticed that. Talk about the exception proving the rule. I'm one of those who prefers my goalie to come and claim, but that means claim not flounder. Gilly would have saved that for sure
It does sound ironic but you don't come out to claim a corner from your right hand side, while there's a tall attacker on right of you, hungry to get his head on the ball.
The parry for the first was something they spend most of their warmup attempting to avoid doing during the game.
Key moments are doing us in at the moment. We are losing them at both ends of the pitch
got 3 pathetic attempts on goal from Washington in that clip (blushes saved by Burstow for the goal), and that isn't even all the chances he squandered. Such a pony striker to have leading our front line.
Pearce has probably had his best season in 3 seasons, and inniss is perma-crocked
Not sure Pearce was picked over Inniss, I suspect Inniss is being eased back in gently. Were to stay fully fit he’d be one of the best defenders in L1, and easily up to Championship standard. I agree that Pearce has had a pretty good season though.
Having slept on it, I think we’re all slightly overreacting to what was actually the only *very* poor performance under JJ. Sure, the results have tailed off after such a good start (when many of us decided our previously very poor players were actually excellent, and only being held back by Adkins), and perhaps there was an element of ‘after the Lord Mayor’s show’ following a good performance in defeat v Norwich, in front on a buoyant crowd at The Valley. But despite the recent results, performances haven’t been awful up until yesterday.
It wasn’t long ago that many on CL were calling for JJ to be made permanent manager after only a handful of games in temporary charge, and yet the drop off in results after he was made permanent was somehow not entirely unexpected, if only because of the Sod’s Law factor.
Perhaps the truth is that our matchday squad is quite mediocre, and only capable of getting results when they play above themselves, and that’s hard to do in a mid table meaningless fixture in Crewe.
As others have asked, do we really have the ambition/money to assemble a squad capable of making the automatic promotion places, or even the playoffs? Perhaps this is the time when the penny might drop with Thomas, and if he’s worried about the financial burden, he might be wise to seek to broaden the ownership base.
The next two or three matches will be very interesting, and let’s hope that the manager will be able to come up with a way of reversing the apparent slide, before we all slump into a deep depression.
Leko being in that position probably underlines why is not a forward. He's not quite aware of his surroundings and where to position himself. He does have strengths but is currently back to looking "raw".
It's such a strange way to end the game as in a freeze frame, 8 Crewe players had their head in the hands that we had scored, including the goalkeeper. If you know somebody has even just possibly obstructed your goalkeeper to concede a goal in the final minute, you react in a different manner. To me that suggests they did not see Leko obstructing their goalkeeper, but a shot loop over him, while he made his best attempts to save it.
Hey ho - onto another slightly overlooked positive, what a great lay off from the chest by Burstow, very Mendonca'esque!
Same team same system that only 3 days ago produced what most agreed our best home performance for a number of years .. same players that got JJ the job …… could be with hindsight JJ should have changed a few players few fresh legs after Sunday .. because although our approach play was still pretty good our final pass of cross was very poor and that could have just been down to mental tiredness…. This team proved there good enough to get top 6 perhaps JJ needs to learn as well
I feel slightly embarrassed about driving four hours from Kent to watch that performance, but at least I can now say I'm part of our "301 club" having witnessed this decade's Dagenham debacle. Fortunately I could crash back at my place in Nottingham ahead of work today!
I don't really know where to start with last night... We're so toothless up front though. We actually looked threatening at the start of the first half when sliding balls across the six-yard box or driving towards the byline and cutting the ball back but we still never look like scoring. Set-pieces are still a joke. Everything else was just off - poor decision-making again, passes behind or too far in front of players. The lack of urgency was a concern as well - even after we'd scored with ten minutes to go, the players didn't look as if they were chasing an equaliser and trying to snatch a point.
Leko is incredibly frustrating to watch - he tore Sunderland a new one at wing-back before getting injured and he's never hit the heights of that performance since. He looks scared playing up front and quite clueless about his role. He looks to play it off quickly more often than not, with some situations requiring him to hold the ball up. He's one of many players who pretty much always pick the wrong option.
The most worrying aspect of the display was how little the players seemed to react to the situation or the criticism from the away supporters. We were pretty close to the action in our stand to the side of the pitch - there was very little communication or shouting amongst the players when going behind, outside of Famewo constantly moaning at CBT for not getting onto his over-hit passes. One bloke shouted at Clare (who along with Dobson can say they actually put a performance in) to call for the ball - he turned around and gestured "what!?" DJ also got into a discussion with one supporter after the second goal but his demeanour seemed to suggest he wasn't fussed and there was a general acceptance that they weren't playing well and maybe couldn't be bothered.
This is worrying. DJ did let the 1st scorer run past him without reacting.He should be disappointed with himself maybe thats the muted reaction that you saw. In some ways I would be happier if he had been angry-showed bit of a competitive attitude.
We are paying the price for an appalling transfer window at the start of the season when we failed to strengthen the squad to anywhere near the levels needed - including wasting goodness knows how much money on Harry Arter's loan from Forest and on Kirk who is nowhere near the level we need.
To be honest I am also far from convinced about DJ either, he shows occasional flashes but doesn't produce enough real impact for my money.
Jacko got the bare bones playing well during his caretaker phase but the cupboard is now bare and we need some quality off the bench and some more options but we don't have them, especially up front where we have TWO senior strikers.
Let's get it right, you need quality in the squad to get promoted and that costs money so unless TS wants to put his hand in his pocket then there is no point griping about performances on Twitter because that is not going to help.
With Macgillvray, Lavelle, Inniss, Famewo, Gilbey, Dobson, Lee, Stockley and Washington we have the bones of a good team but we are still short in depth and in goal-scoring power.
Agree with much of this, although I would add Ben Purrington, but it still looks very much like League One would be their level. Only Dobson and Stockley, IMO, look like proper Championship quality. Sandgaard will need to invest to get us up, and then invest again to compete at the higher level.
We play a system in which the most important players on the pitch are the two wing backs. We do not have a wing back of sufficient quality or consistency in the entire squad on either side, yet we have 4 senior full backs and at least 3 partly-converted wingers.
To date this is something we haven't been able to help - JJ has introduced the formation without any transfer window to recruit for it. The squad and tactics are not aligned. However, if this is the long term formation we need to recruit a starting pair of wing backs. If there is nothing out there for a permanent we need to look into the loan market. Otherwise, this formation needs a rethink. It is always going to be critically limited by playing players in the key positions who are either not capable defensively or offensively.
We clearly need a centre forward as well but in my opinion the wing backs are just as important given the influence that position has on the entire tactical set up.
We play a system in which the most important players on the pitch are the two wing backs. We do not have a wing back of sufficient quality or consistency in the entire squad on either side, yet we have 4 senior full backs and at least 3 partly-converted wingers.
To date this is something we haven't been able to help - JJ has introduced the formation without any transfer window to recruit for it. The squad and tactics are not aligned. However, if this is the long term formation we need to recruit a starting pair of wing backs. If there is nothing out there for a permanent we need to look into the loan market. Otherwise, this formation needs a rethink. It is always going to be critically limited by playing players in the key positions who are either not capable defensively or offensively.
We clearly need a centre forward as well but in my opinion the wing backs are just as important given the influence that position has on the entire tactical set up.
Curbs used to say 'you've got to manage what you've got.' Jacko has done that successfully initially. We now have to see if he can react positively now his initial plans have been sussed. Curbs went 4-5-1 if people remember which stopped the rot. Can Jacko find a solution (not 4-5-1 obviously without Stockley)?
Henderson was woeful last night. I would much rather have Nathan Harness as back-up keeper. Let's develop the young talent rather than keep old retainers on who are well past their best.
We have played Pearce because there has been hardly a credible alternative. Most thought he would lead the U23’s most of the season as he transitions from player to coach. We have wrung Pearce dry this season, the approach has been similar to rolling and squeezing the toothpaste tube to get the last bit out. As far as I am concerned Pearce has metamorphosed into a genuine lesser know club legend like Webster. He is who and what he is and massively deserves respect.
Comments
Henderson would have saved that if he had stayed on his line.
How often has MacGillivray been moaned at for doing just this.
I'm one of those who prefers my goalie to come and claim, but that means claim not flounder.
Gilly would have saved that for sure
Maybe the Crewe striker did well to force Henderson to spill the shot for the first goal - But think Henderson has to take as much blame as the defence do for the goals last night.
"Why wasn't Pearce/Famewo/Leko/DJ/Lee" subbed
If only we could male 8 subs in a match...
The parry for the first was something they spend most of their warmup attempting to avoid doing during the game.
Key moments are doing us in at the moment. We are losing them at both ends of the pitch
https://londonnewsonline.co.uk/four-takeaways-from-charltons-controversial-defeat-at-crewe-fragmented-and-frustrating/
The next two or three matches will be very interesting, and let’s hope that the manager will be able to come up with a way of reversing the apparent slide, before we all slump into a deep depression.
It's such a strange way to end the game as in a freeze frame, 8 Crewe players had their head in the hands that we had scored, including the goalkeeper. If you know somebody has even just possibly obstructed your goalkeeper to concede a goal in the final minute, you react in a different manner. To me that suggests they did not see Leko obstructing their goalkeeper, but a shot loop over him, while he made his best attempts to save it.
Hey ho - onto another slightly overlooked positive, what a great lay off from the chest by Burstow, very Mendonca'esque!
I thought the pitch didn’t help.
To date this is something we haven't been able to help - JJ has introduced the formation without any transfer window to recruit for it. The squad and tactics are not aligned. However, if this is the long term formation we need to recruit a starting pair of wing backs. If there is nothing out there for a permanent we need to look into the loan market. Otherwise, this formation needs a rethink. It is always going to be critically limited by playing players in the key positions who are either not capable defensively or offensively.
We clearly need a centre forward as well but in my opinion the wing backs are just as important given the influence that position has on the entire tactical set up.