Moment of the day from me has to come from my 15 year old son - who has turned from a lad who would come to Charlton if he had nothing else to do, to a total hard core fan riding off the wave of positivity around the club. It’s brilliant sharing my life long passion with him.
But it was a moment to remember when his enthusiasm got the better of him.
“Come on ball boy - get a move on and get the ball! That kid needs to do the job he was asked to do!” *proceeds to put his head in his hands
Me: “Son, he’s not being lazy not getting the ball. It’s not his job.
Would have been a travesty if we hadn’t taken three points from that game.
I assume this was significantly skewed by the late open goal miss from Camara. Was not that comprehensive IMO, orient didn’t look like scoring but we also looked a bit vulnerable defensively at points, tougher tests to come but we overcame todays.
The Charlie Kirk negativity is getting boring now.
he was only on for ten minutes and short of choosing not to shoot from his own half I can’t see what he did wrong.
That was the correct decision he was a long way out and on the touchline.. So he played safe and got us a throw... If he had kicked it and it got picked up by Orient and led to a goal what would be people saying then..
I disagree.
He got us a throw in our own half that nearly got turned over into an attack for them.
Wouldn't expect him to score from where he was but the ball could (and should) have ended up in with the Orient fans. Much harder to score from a gk than in our half.
And he miskicked 18 yards out. Wouldn't have him upfront in a month of Sunday's
Not yet anywhere near fluent, that will come, but what struck me today was how hard the players worked for each other particularly if someone had made a mistake. That was a complete change from last season.
The Charlie Kirk negativity is getting boring now.
he was only on for ten minutes and short of choosing not to shoot from his own half I can’t see what he did wrong.
That was the correct decision he was a long way out and on the touchline.. So he played safe and got us a throw... If he had kicked it and it got picked up by Orient and led to a goal what would be people saying then..
I disagree.
He got us a throw in our own half that nearly got turned over into an attack for them.
Wouldn't expect him to score from where he was but the ball could (and should) have ended up in with the Orient fans. Much harder to score from a gk than in our half.
And he miskicked 18 yards out. Wouldn't have him upfront in a month of Sunday's
I seem to remember that we had men breaking through the middle as well. Anything into the penalty box could have resulted in a goal for us.
PWR - The biggest positive for me today is that I honestly believe there is so much more to come between now and the end of September.
We need to grind results out this month because we will be light in certain areas, but I am sure that once all the new signings are up to speed and we get the final few pieces of the jigsaw there is a lot more to come from this squad.
I wasn’t expecting an exhibition of the beautiful game - they have by come up from Div 4, London derby, brought good support, was always gonna be huff and puff
But :-
Get May a proper partner, and we have a cracking CF there Camara is quality Edun looks a find as well Asimwe and Anderson did very well Dobson awesome
We still need some new faces, defence and up front - I don’t think we need anymore for midfield
Defence is key area on that showing - we will obviously come up against much better than Orient, and whilst I didn’t think they would score, defensively it’s still work in progress
But, a great day - my mates and I off to Peterborough next Saturday - looking forward to it
Obviously we're not quite there yet, but I kept thinking that we're finally starting to play like a proper League One side. I was reminded of Rotherham - we're direct, move the ball quickly and seem to know where our chance are coming from. It seems far more pragmatic than our previous managers of recent years.
We will bypass the midfield at times this season, I think Holden has hinted at that. It's League One after all, nothing wrong with it. It's not like we're lumping it up to an isolated Jayden. The long balls have purpose.
Those long balls out to the wing remind me of Sam Allardyce @ Bolton, they're hard to deal with – the oppo can either head it out for a throw deep into their half, or they can leave it to Cory, who's now isolated against their FB and going to win that duel. Bolton used to play that pass to Diouf and it was an effing nightmare, even for top teams.
Granted, we don't quite have the players to capitalise on our new system, but I can really get behind us trying to play pragmatic football to suit the league we're in. It's a progression from Garnerball.
On a separate note, we started our first game of the season with 5/11 players coming from our academy setup. That's bloody remarkable.
Think it’s credit to Pratley, who I was genuinely pleased we got rid of, that our fans are saying Fraser had a quiet game and Camara made such a difference. Pratley went off around the same time.
I do think a three of Camara, Fraser and Dobson is as good as any in the league though. And what is exciting, is I don’t know how good Taylor is compared to them.
Thought that was poor to be honest and very reminiscent of last season. A better side than Orient and we wouldn't have won.
Far too many long balls for May to chase, and it was noticeable how static everyone was when our centre backs had the ball, meaning no option but to go long.
But playing poorly and winning 1 nil is the sign of champions
Some promising performances today. Great to see Dobbo back to his best and CBT in the first half was on fire.
I'm going to comment on something completely different: throw-ins. We kept possession on most of our throws and I've not seen that in years and players were looking to get the ball into play quickly without waiting for the appointed throw-in taker to arrive. This must have been something they've worked on.
We still dont have a long throw specialist though.
Good to start with a win. Don’t like this ridiculous amount of added time if only because it means @Arsenetatters hens don’t get fed until ten past five.
"Our supporters were tremendous," says their manager. "Away end was amazing today," says Orient Twitterer. Am I losing my hearing? I didn't hear a peep out of their support all game.
I thought they were incredibly quiet for their numbers, though they were probably reeling from the fact their 'cohesive transfer policy' was not kicking in
Managers will always say the usual things. How good their fans were, and how good the opposition were.
It's reflects much better on the manager and his players if he can put it out there that the opponents are a quality outfit challenging for promotion, and that only losing 1-0 was a great achievement
Great atmosphere at the kick off and we tore into Orient, nearly scoring after four minutes. CBT was immense, setting up several near chances until Dobbo finished just in front of May. Surprising to find Ness as our playmaker today, with Fraser marked out of the game. Anderson and Asimwe were very good. It is terrific to see our youth products breaking through. We all loved May. He should combine well with Leaburn. A positive start.
My hot take from today is that Camara is the player Fraser thinks he is. Inexplicable miss aside, he was excellent when he came on. While Fraser seems to need another second or two when there's a passing option, giving the opponent a chance to get the ball off him, Camara showed Dobson-esque control and got his passes away when the opportunity arose. I don't mean to be too negative about Fraser as he clearly has oodles of talent, but from what we've seen so far I'd prefer Camara to start over him. With Taylor to come in as well, plus McGrandles, our midfield shouldn't be too much of a problem this season.
Orient were clearly happy to sit back and let us try to figure out how to break them down, and other than the goal, we struggled to do that. Ness saw a lot of the ball, and although some intelligent runs were being made in front of him, it's always going to be hard to get those long balls over the top right – and speaking of which, based on today May will get caught offside quite a lot.
The pluses are that we were fairly solid (which is a relief after last week's friendly), CBT was very effective in the first half before fading in the second, Dobson was excellent as he usually is, Anderson and Asiimwe didn't look out of place, and Edun made a very good first impression.
We'll face tougher tests, but today was a reasonably good start.
Very happy to take the 3 points. If Orient play like that across the season, they should be fine to stay up.
Loved watching May all game, but we're crying out for someone to hold the ball up for him and give us another outlet. We spent most of the game forcing the ball down the left and, as successful as CB-T was, it made us a little one-dimensional. I feel like that strategy was forced on us because of the lack of height/hold up play up front. Arguably, we need at least one striker - if not two, if Chuks cannot be counted on. No-one will want to sell before the window closes, but this is likely what we'll need and what this game highlighted. We're a May injury away from a complete striker crisis.
Plenty of positives across the pitch, but getting points off of better sides will be a challenge if we don't bring in a couple more faces. Peterboro next week should offer another decent test - happily avoid defeat and then look for 6 in the week after with the 2 more home games.
Glad we held on and could have nicked a 2nd. Probably would have bottled this the last couple of seasons.
Having watched Camara's miss back, his error was he could have put it back across the keeper. But tbh I have to say it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I had in my head.
"Our supporters were tremendous," says their manager. "Away end was amazing today," says Orient Twitterer. Am I losing my hearing? I didn't hear a peep out of their support all game.
I thought they were incredibly quiet for their numbers, though they were probably reeling from the fact their 'cohesive transfer policy' was not kicking in
The fact that 90% of their following are really West Ham fans probably undermines the atmosphere a bit too!
Dobbo awesome and CBT unplayable at times - these two made the real difference in class. The kids all did really well too - very little comment on Tupac who seems to have made a big step-up already from last year. Asiimwe looked a natural. Anderson was a bit more hot and cold but there’s genuine talent there once he settles and his team mates know they can trust him more with the ball. Defence gave me heebeegeebees at times but looking back on it we really restricted their opportunities so must have been doing something right! Ness is not the man to be having to ping the long balls all the time but Pratley sat on Fraser so no outlet there. I used to love Pratley when one of ours - now hate the dirty bar steward 😉 AMB is a brave goalie - hope he keeps the number one and stays injury free.
Atmosphere v good at times but also long periods of quiet. Interesting that “Allez, allez, allez” is back. VFR still needs to be even slower. But we’ll sing it when we want not when we’re told ;-) And what an iconic pic by Kyle Andrews.
Comments
Remember now I defended him a lot the past two seasons.
In the warm ups he was whining every time he lost the ball and even had something of an altercation with Hector...
But it was a moment to remember when his enthusiasm got the better of him.
Me: “Son, he’s not being lazy not getting the ball. It’s not his job.
Thats Jack Payne”.
He got us a throw in our own half that nearly got turned over into an attack for them.
Wouldn't expect him to score from where he was but the ball could (and should) have ended up in with the Orient fans. Much harder to score from a gk than in our half.
And he miskicked 18 yards out. Wouldn't have him upfront in a month of Sunday's
But :-
Get May a proper partner, and we have a cracking CF there
Camara is quality
Edun looks a find as well
Asimwe and Anderson did very well
Dobson awesome
We still need some new faces, defence and up front - I don’t think we need anymore for midfield
Defence is key area on that showing - we will obviously come up against much better than Orient, and whilst I didn’t think they would score, defensively it’s still work in progress
But, a great day - my mates and I off to Peterborough next Saturday - looking forward to it
We will bypass the midfield at times this season, I think Holden has hinted at that. It's League One after all, nothing wrong with it. It's not like we're lumping it up to an isolated Jayden. The long balls have purpose.
Those long balls out to the wing remind me of Sam Allardyce @ Bolton, they're hard to deal with – the oppo can either head it out for a throw deep into their half, or they can leave it to Cory, who's now isolated against their FB and going to win that duel. Bolton used to play that pass to Diouf and it was an effing nightmare, even for top teams.
Granted, we don't quite have the players to capitalise on our new system, but I can really get behind us trying to play pragmatic football to suit the league we're in. It's a progression from Garnerball.
On a separate note, we started our first game of the season with 5/11 players coming from our academy setup. That's bloody remarkable.
I do think a three of Camara, Fraser and Dobson is as good as any in the league though. And what is exciting, is I don’t know how good Taylor is compared to them.
Far too many long balls for May to chase, and it was noticeable how static everyone was when our centre backs had the ball, meaning no option but to go long.
But playing poorly and winning 1 nil is the sign of champions
I'm going to comment on something completely different: throw-ins. We kept possession on most of our throws and I've not seen that in years and players were looking to get the ball into play quickly without waiting for the appointed throw-in taker to arrive. This must have been something they've worked on.
We still dont have a long throw specialist though.
It's reflects much better on the manager and his players if he can put it out there that the opponents are a quality outfit challenging for promotion, and that only losing 1-0 was a great achievement
Orient were clearly happy to sit back and let us try to figure out how to break them down, and other than the goal, we struggled to do that. Ness saw a lot of the ball, and although some intelligent runs were being made in front of him, it's always going to be hard to get those long balls over the top right – and speaking of which, based on today May will get caught offside quite a lot.
The pluses are that we were fairly solid (which is a relief after last week's friendly), CBT was very effective in the first half before fading in the second, Dobson was excellent as he usually is, Anderson and Asiimwe didn't look out of place, and Edun made a very good first impression.
We'll face tougher tests, but today was a reasonably good start.
Loved watching May all game, but we're crying out for someone to hold the ball up for him and give us another outlet. We spent most of the game forcing the ball down the left and, as successful as CB-T was, it made us a little one-dimensional. I feel like that strategy was forced on us because of the lack of height/hold up play up front. Arguably, we need at least one striker - if not two, if Chuks cannot be counted on. No-one will want to sell before the window closes, but this is likely what we'll need and what this game highlighted. We're a May injury away from a complete striker crisis.
Plenty of positives across the pitch, but getting points off of better sides will be a challenge if we don't bring in a couple more faces. Peterboro next week should offer another decent test - happily avoid defeat and then look for 6 in the week after with the 2 more home games.
Glad we held on and could have nicked a 2nd. Probably would have bottled this the last couple of seasons.
Having watched Camara's miss back, his error was he could have put it back across the keeper. But tbh I have to say it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I had in my head.
The kids all did really well too - very little comment on Tupac who seems to have made a big step-up already from last year. Asiimwe looked a natural. Anderson was a bit more hot and cold but there’s genuine talent there once he settles and his team mates know they can trust him more with the ball.
Defence gave me heebeegeebees at times but looking back on it we really restricted their opportunities so must have been doing something right! Ness is not the man to be having to ping the long balls all the time but Pratley sat on Fraser so no outlet there. I used to love Pratley when one of ours - now hate the dirty bar steward 😉
AMB is a brave goalie - hope he keeps the number one and stays injury free.
And what an iconic pic by Kyle Andrews.
The referee deemed it as time wasting, rather than using his brain