Post Match thread: Charlton Athletic vs Sunderland | Saturday 5th March 2022

Game was dull but we dug in and defended harder than we have for weeks.  Lots of last ditch blocks and one off the line.  Sunderland missed some gilt edged chances still though so plenty to do.

Stockley back a massive improvement despite a lack of fitness, Fraser clearly knows how to pass and will get better and better.

Burstow tries his best, he clearly has talent and will go on to have a decent career but he hasn't grown into his body yet and experienced lumps at the back out muscle him.  This period will do him the world of good compared to kicking around in Chelsea U18's I think.  Some of the crowd need to lay off him as he can't do more than his best. It's pathetic some of the comments from people who sit around me.

Green shoots.

As for Sunderland, they as a club are too big for L1 and their fans deserve the success their club will have when it eventually does happen.  I like them generally.  But their team are an embarrassment, diving constantly and in the ref and linesman faces all throughout the game.  Tried to get many of our players sent off.  Claiming Stockley elbowed them, nasty pushes when the ref wasn't watching.  The fact the ref gave them no bookings for any of it was soft.

Croydon said:

Jonniesta said:

Braziliance said:

Jacko needs to go, 352 again when we don’t have any wingbacks, our centre backs can’t play it out from the back and our strikers couldn’t hold it up/win headers. Completely out of his depth. If he wasn’t Charlton the atmosphere would be toxic. 

Pritchard and their 9 destroyed us until they came off, they missed 3 free headers, they should have been at least 3 nil up by halftime. 

Lavelle? Have a word, I somehow got tricked into thinking he was good cause he was Morecambes captain and came with good reviews from them, then it dawned on me, it was league 2 and Morecambe. He is Jason Pearce v2, panicked and unassured. 

So much more to moan about but at the end of the day, I truly believe we need Jacko gone and get a manager in who knows how to change it up. Keep the decent players and flog the rest. Out of that lot today, only Dobson, Fraser, McG and Stockley would be anywhere near my team 

just can’t wait for it to be over 

But Jacko hasn't had a summer to do this yet. He wants 3-5-2, we don't have the players. You have to give him a summer to build his team. You simply can't do that in January. It's been a shocking season, but, whilst you can't exonerate Jackson from that totally, the Adkins start, a large handful of players not good enough to challenge for promotion, and the last 6 games of 0 strikers fit have been arguably more culpable. 

Agree with your summary of most of the squad, but not sure what you would've done differently with the squad we have. 

So play a different  formation until you do then. It's crazy to continue with it otherwise 

But, with the strikers out, I don't think we have the right balance for any formation. And historically we're a 4-4-2 team, so we need to embed this one. I think it's crazy to change it when that gives us nothing for next year. We were never going to get promoted after the start we had, fooling ourselves to think otherwise. 

Many have rightly said build the team around Dobson. Straight away that puts us in a 5-man midfield or a diamond. 

The next must-includes seem to be Fraser and Stockley, but Stockley as a lone forward doesn't work. So that says 2 up front. Washington and JFC potentially fill those two gaps at CM and CF. That's a decent core. Get as many as possible playing regularly that way and build a long-term team.

That leaves a bunch of wide players for only 2 wide spots, but none of them have shown themselves to be promotion-level, so why waste 4 spaces in the team on them? 

4-3-3 didn't work, everyone was too isolated. Washington is a lousy wide player, much better as 2nd forward, so what do you suggest we play?

We moved our season tickets to the West Lower yesterday.Greqt view but zero atmosphere.  No noise from fans at all.

Covered End said:

balham red said:

I'd also agree Dobson has been great for us. Does anyone think there is a chance he may be part of our problem also though?

It's obvious our fundamental problem is we can't pass it from our defence through our midfield. With Dobson our only withdrawn midfielder, the defenders are limited to passing amongst themselves, to Dobbo, or hitting it long.

Dobson isn't awful on the ball, but could there be an argument to say he isn't capable of linking our playing out?

Or do we need Fraser/JFC to drop alongside him to give us more options?

I accept when Clare is playing it also expands our options.

But this is a real problem for us, and certainly was yesterday.

Dobson our POTY by a country mile is 100% not part of our problem and I'm astounded that even one person could think he is. Utterly bizarre.

That's not a fair summary of my post at all. In the first line I said he's been great, and I do agree he's been our player of the season.

I was in fact questioning why we are unable to play the ball through our midfield instead of long balls. Any idea why?

I was pleased with the point yesterday. I have been saying that Jackson should park the bus in front of goal for the last month while the injury crises is at its worst. Well yesterday they did, not through choice I suspect but because they could do nothing else.
Even with a fully fit squad this is a lower midtable team and that should be remembered.

It was a scrappy game, but we showed much more fighting spirit than other recent games. Sunderland probably should have scored one of their free headers, but they didn't. We didn't have a shot on target, but had a few decent half chances and could have scored with a bit of luck. I expected something from the game and think we just about deserved a draw for out battling display. We just need to get Washington back and I am confident the wins will come. I think we will win more than we lose between now and the end of the season and will end up 12th or 13th (not that this is much to shout about).  

Jonniesta said:

Croydon said:

Jonniesta said:

Braziliance said:

Jacko needs to go, 352 again when we don’t have any wingbacks, our centre backs can’t play it out from the back and our strikers couldn’t hold it up/win headers. Completely out of his depth. If he wasn’t Charlton the atmosphere would be toxic. 

Pritchard and their 9 destroyed us until they came off, they missed 3 free headers, they should have been at least 3 nil up by halftime. 

Lavelle? Have a word, I somehow got tricked into thinking he was good cause he was Morecambes captain and came with good reviews from them, then it dawned on me, it was league 2 and Morecambe. He is Jason Pearce v2, panicked and unassured. 

So much more to moan about but at the end of the day, I truly believe we need Jacko gone and get a manager in who knows how to change it up. Keep the decent players and flog the rest. Out of that lot today, only Dobson, Fraser, McG and Stockley would be anywhere near my team 

just can’t wait for it to be over 

But Jacko hasn't had a summer to do this yet. He wants 3-5-2, we don't have the players. You have to give him a summer to build his team. You simply can't do that in January. It's been a shocking season, but, whilst you can't exonerate Jackson from that totally, the Adkins start, a large handful of players not good enough to challenge for promotion, and the last 6 games of 0 strikers fit have been arguably more culpable. 

Agree with your summary of most of the squad, but not sure what you would've done differently with the squad we have. 

So play a different  formation until you do then. It's crazy to continue with it otherwise 

But, with the strikers out, I don't think we have the right balance for any formation. And historically we're a 4-4-2 team, so we need to embed this one. I think it's crazy to change it when that gives us nothing for next year. We were never going to get promoted after the start we had, fooling ourselves to think otherwise. 

Many have rightly said build the team around Dobson. Straight away that puts us in a 5-man midfield or a diamond. 

The next must-includes seem to be Fraser and Stockley, but Stockley as a lone forward doesn't work. So that says 2 up front. Washington and JFC potentially fill those two gaps at CM and CF. That's a decent core. Get as many as possible playing regularly that way and build a long-term team.

That leaves a bunch of wide players for only 2 wide spots, but none of them have shown themselves to be promotion-level, so why waste 4 spaces in the team on them? 

4-3-3 didn't work, everyone was too isolated. Washington is a lousy wide player, much better as 2nd forward, so what do you suggest we play?

You can't build a side around Dobson, he's a CDM. First name on the team sheet fine, but you build sides around players like Bannan.

You think its crazy to change to a formation that we won't use next year, but why wouldn't we? 352 won't work for every opposition, it's madness to think you can play the same every week against every side.

What's even crazier is sticking with it and losing 5 on the spin in this dogshit league out of out pure stubbornness. Any other manager would have been crucified for that, but Jackson gets a total pass from so much of the fanbase. 

Chippycafc said:

Had a fantastic day in the boardroom yesterday and spoke to Sangaards son after the game. He was very approachable and said all there focus is on a proper recruitment drive now and for the start of next season.

Thanks to Swisdom for yesterday, top man and his family.

Can I therefore be critical if, by the start of August, we are still way behind other teams in terms of recruitment & we are still missing the players that will get us into the top 6. My optimum would be to have the core of squad pretty much complete by the time we play Welling in pre-season (usually around 10th-15th July) with just a few fringe players/ loans coming in by the start of August.

I got a lot of stick last July when I moaned that we were well behind other teams like  ipswich & Wigan & was told to "be patient" and to trust the recruitment team. Unfortunately I have been proved right. I don't want to be proved right again.

Redmidland said:

Chippycafc said:

Had a fantastic day in the boardroom yesterday and spoke to Sangaards son after the game. He was very approachable and said all there focus is on a proper recruitment drive now and for the start of next season.

Thanks to Swisdom for yesterday, top man and his family.

Hi @Chippycafc I am interested in your comment. Did you get the feeling that this summers transfers dealing will be better and quicker than last? Also was there a feeling of disappointment at the shambles of last summer? Thanks in advance mate.

Hi Mate

There were a few of us asking questions in a quite informal manner. They felt there were mistakes made especially with the fitness of some individuals, but wouldnt name which is fair enough.

They have highlighted individuals already and have been looking into their backgrounds and suitability for us as a football club, He siad there is budget for the right players but wont bank roll the club in persuit of promotion.

The feeling we got was it would be a lot better.

redbuttle said:

We moved our season tickets to the West Lower yesterday.Greqt view but zero atmosphere.  No noise from fans at all.

It's never been any different.

Anyone who hoped for a free-flowing attacking performance from us is either a hopeless optimist,  or hasn't been watching us.  The most I hoped for was not to watch the away fans celebrating all the way to London Bridge.  
Job done. 

balham red said:

I'd also agree Dobson has been great for us. Does anyone think there is a chance he may be part of our problem also though?

It's obvious our fundamental problem is we can't pass it from our defence through our midfield. With Dobson our only withdrawn midfielder, the defenders are limited to passing amongst themselves, to Dobbo, or hitting it long.

Dobson isn't awful on the ball, but could there be an argument to say he isn't capable of linking our playing out?

Or do we need Fraser/JFC to drop alongside him to give us more options?

I accept when Clare is playing it also expands our options.

But this is a real problem for us, and certainly was yesterday.

I think the question you need to ask yourself is why Gilbey and Lee stopped performing and killed off our midfield unit. Dobson is the only one who continued to perform and his passing/switching of play is absolutely fine for me in L1.

The surrounding players have simply not performed their role.

We stopped the slide towards the relegation zone, with the added bonus of seeing Keithie Peacock looking well at halftime, not such a bad afternoon!

masicat said:

I don’t know what the whole question is, but the answer is VARNEY

Having given this some considerable thought, I surmise that the whole question might be:

Which Reg starred in the sitcom On the Buses?