POST-MATCH THREAD: Charlton Athletic v Rotherham Utd: Saturday 7th September 2024 | KO 15:00

Nothing it seems divides a fan base more than a battling draw. The optimists can see the positives and the pessimists the negatives.

I think people are not considering enough the opposition and their style of play. It was a decent point against a team determined (as is always the case with Evans) to ruin the fluency of a game. They beat Huddersfield (a team most had in the top 2 pre season) last weekend so would have been coming in with momentum and confidence.

It wasn’t flowing, it wasn’t pretty, but we kept the unbeaten home record in tact and still 2 points per game.

The next one is really interesting as it’s the first game this season where I go in with me believing our opponents are poor. I really hope we can look more creative against them.

Callumcafc said:

I am amazed and surprised that our midfielders and defenders are positioned this deep when Kelly picks up the ball to begin with.

Both lines should be 6 or more yards further up the pitch. Makes it hard to close down effectively when you’re starting so far away.

Jones gave the bsll away unnecessarily going forward and everybody rushed back to cover a dynamic situation. I would fault Jones for the goal, if anybody.

Sheepie1985 said:

Anyone notice the pitch looking a bit rough down in front of the North Stand F Block? Surprised that it's already roughing up considering it's supposed to be a super pitch

I think the new pitch technology works in two ways: other than the obvious, it’s supposed to be a lot more resilient over a year that will see ~60 games played on it each season.

I don’t expect it to cut up nearly as badly as pitches of seasons gone by.

Rothko said:

ValleyGary said:

Just watched their goal again. Mannion ain’t saving that in a month of Sundays. Whips away from him, no chance.

Sat right behind it in the NE Quad, and the moment it left the foot it was in, peach of a hit 

They say '99 out of a 100 he couldn't do that again' etc, well that lad hadn't scored for FOUR YEARS, so I guess we're thinking 999 out of a 1000!

Lewis Coaches said:

Callumcafc said:

So we’re shite but we have 10 points from 5 games.

Better than being shite and having 3 points from 5 games and your manager gets sacked like this time last year.

Get out of this league however we can. I will take winning 3 out of every 5 games between now and the end of the season.

The only teams we have beaten at the moment stand in the bottom seven.
Yesterday Rotherham stood eighth before kick off.
I am sure everyone would take winning 3 out of every 5 games ,that would surely see top two and promotion. But hand on heart can we see that happening with our team?

Rotherham weren't 8th.
I think they were 17th and are now up to 15th.

Sheepie1985 said:

Anyone notice the pitch looking a bit rough down in front of the North Stand F Block? Surprised that it's already roughing up considering it's supposed to be a super pitch

The Covered End please 

Maybe they were a tiny bit slow to close him but there was still such a tiny chance for a goal from there, it really feels churlish to nitpick about that when we've been so solid. The Reading first goal was the same, he was under challenge and it somehow snuck through into the corner. Just really unlucky 

Southbank said:

Callumcafc said:

I am amazed and surprised that our midfielders and defenders are positioned this deep when Kelly picks up the ball to begin with.

Both lines should be 6 or more yards further up the pitch. Makes it hard to close down effectively when you’re starting so far away.

Jones gave the bsll away unnecessarily going forward and everybody rushed back to cover a dynamic situation. I would fault Jones for the goal, if anybody.

There is a case for not faulting anyone. There is the saying that you can't complain when opponents shoot from that far out and the odds on conceding 3 worldies (2 in the league)  so far this season are incredibly low. Certainly not one every two games! So I don't think it should worry us too much. At this level we shouldn't expect 1 in 15 so the biggest fault can maybe be pointed at lady luck. I think the way we defend, we are very hard to beat in the real danger areas and not the speculative ones.

ShootersHillGuru said:

Workmanlike, disciplined, athletic, committed, organised but here’s the question. Where is the flair. Where is that sprinkle of magic. Where ? 

I've not really seen any teams (in the league) that are playing with much in the way of flair honestly. Certainly there's teams playing with a more technical, passing style than we are but none of the teams have really caught my eye as particularly stylish or impressive.

thenewbie said:

ShootersHillGuru said:

Workmanlike, disciplined, athletic, committed, organised but here’s the question. Where is the flair. Where is that sprinkle of magic. Where ? 

I've not really seen any teams (in the league) that are playing with much in the way of flair honestly. Certainly there's teams playing with a more technical, passing style than we are but none of the teams have really caught my eye as particularly stylish or impressive.

I don’t necessarily mean teams playing with flair. It’s league one. My comment was mainly directed at, it would seem that we don’t have a player that has that about him. Chuks can do things that most others in league one can’t but he’s not always available. TC has plenty of talent but flair ? 

ShootersHillGuru said:

thenewbie said:

ShootersHillGuru said:

Workmanlike, disciplined, athletic, committed, organised but here’s the question. Where is the flair. Where is that sprinkle of magic. Where ? 

I've not really seen any teams (in the league) that are playing with much in the way of flair honestly. Certainly there's teams playing with a more technical, passing style than we are but none of the teams have really caught my eye as particularly stylish or impressive.

I don’t necessarily mean teams playing with flair. It’s league one. My comment was mainly directed at, it would seem that we don’t have a player that has that about him. Chuks can do things that most others in league one can’t but he’s not always available. TC has plenty of talent but flair ? 

Well Chuks is (currently) having his minutes managed to fill that role. With luck Dixon might well step up too. Leaburn is another "good feet for a big man" player who can make things happen. Docherty and Berry have both shown they do have the Johnny Jackson style midfield strike in their respective lockers, admittedly seeing more of it would be good.

I think (okay, I hope) that we'll see a bit more style and flourish as the season goes on - successful Jones teams have started slow and finished strongly as a rule, hopefully it is the case again.

Garrymanilow said:

Lewis Coaches said:

Callumcafc said:

So we’re shite but we have 10 points from 5 games.

Better than being shite and having 3 points from 5 games and your manager gets sacked like this time last year.

Get out of this league however we can. I will take winning 3 out of every 5 games between now and the end of the season.

The only teams we have beaten at the moment stand in the bottom seven.
Yesterday Rotherham stood eighth before kick off.
I am sure everyone would take winning 3 out of every 5 games ,that would surely see top two and promotion. But hand on heart can we see that happening with our team?

I imagine us beating Manchester City in the third round of the FA Cup and you pointing out that beating City's not that impressive, they didn't even make it to the fourth round of the FA Cup

When you win matches very early in the season (after 2,3 or 4 games) the teams you beat will often be way lower down the table because of the zero points they got against us, and the plus three points we got. It’s just maths. It doesn’t necessarily mean they are terrible teams. It also sometimes takes teams relegated from the Championship a few games to adapt to L1. 

Covered_End_Lad said:

JamesSeed said:

seth plum said:

Of the three goals we have conceded this season two have been excellent efforts, one clearly our mistake.
We may not be battering others, but neither are we being battered ourselves.

And this isn’t the first time we’ve been victims of worldies. They’re a bit like busses…
Would be nice if we scored a few more. Chuks’s goal was incredibly well taken, but he was only just outside the box, so decently high Xg I suspect. Those 25-30 yarders always have an element of luck about them. That Kelly fella will never score a better goal than that.
While the game wasn’t barnstorming by any means, it was interesting enough for me. I’m a bit surprised by people saying they wanted to walk out at half time. 

I took a lot of pleasure from the performances of Ramsey and to some extent Tupac and Chuks. Jones also caught the eye with some decent forward runs and passes, and Mitchell is always worth watching for his positioning and his tackling. 

The midfield are efficient enough, and I did say while the window was open that a bit of creativity was needed. 

Still, overall I’m happy enough for now. 

The xG for Chuks goal was only 0.05, think about how many shots from that area are taken and not that many go in, xG suggests that 1 in 20 would go in from there.

That shows a flaw in their calculations, to my mind. 

Airman Brown said:

fenaddick said:

Airman Brown said:

MuttleyCAFC said:

seth plum said:

We presumably travel to Shrewsbury on Friday (incidentally what was the late arrival of Rotherham all about, don’t they stay in a local hotel?), yet on Friday evening we are due to play an U21 game at home to Leeds United with a 7pm kick off at the Valley.
Clearly there will be significance regarding the team for Saturday when we see the Friday line up. Things are further complicated by international absentees and when they return and in what shape.
So I make the U21 game tomorrow afternoon at Dartford a particularly interesting one in terms of the players selected, we might get more of an idea about what’s what at the weekend after tomorrow.

I don't know but the Blackwall Tunnel being closed may have affected them traffic wise even if they stayed in a hotel, depending on where it was. I think the constant closures and restrictions to the tunnel is affecting gates to a certain degree too. 

I think people just have unrealistic expectations in terms of attendances. That was probably 11-12,000, which is not unreasonable for an early home game with Rotherham in a fifth consecutive L1 season. The uncertainty over the game being on and people making other plans in the meantime may have trimmed the crowd more than the tiny number coming through the tunnel.

I know you probably won't have any recent data but do you have any idea of how many people actually drive to games rather than walk/get public transport? I'm always surprised when I see people talking about driving as the public transport links are so good. Aware not everyone is able to use them but would imagine that's a small %

Most people probably come in cars. There is a lot of public transport but at least three quarters of home fans are heading into a direction that falls into an arc from the river to Bromley (even if that requires them to start a train journey in the opposite direction).

Valley Express carries able bout 2% these days. It was more like 5% on a regular basis in the PL, rising to 15% on exceptional days. The problem is that the public transport isn’t useful for many people, which is why VEX worked. It’s not just location but cost, age and disability too.

The train can be an unreliable source of travel as well. If you use it as your chosen mode of transport a weekend of engineering works soon scuppers that and convinces you to get in the car as it's always available, worse still if you have to make multiple changes. I use the train from Canterbury but with industrial action in the last 18 months it became too unreliable, that's now settled so I have returned to the train with renewed confidence that I will get there and get home, it's worked so far.