after the three defeats that preceded this I would have been happy with two draws from these two aways as long as we got performances. Well we certainly got the performances and the teams endeavours got the two wins we probably deserved, especially at St Mary's. Tonite we dominated the first half, failed to take our chances, visibly tired in the second half so letting them back in, and then came strong again at the end. Once again the players showed how much it meant to them without the wild hysteria we saw at St Mary's, although we were once again treated to Millsy's forward rolls. Good support, vocally and numbers wise I thought, and well worth going. Slept on the coach, not tired now, hence the 3am posting.
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He's probably asleep Eltham. ;-)
Really disapointed with Bristol City though - for a home team they lacked punch and urgency, unless we were that good we snuffed them out. A couple of their supporters we talked to before the game were a bit aprehensive and said that they were in a false position and thought we would win. Not sure if that was because we are an ex-prem team and percieved to be certs for promotion, but the difference did show like it did at St Mary's.
My only gripe (yes, there has to be one) is that we are starting to dominate games again but only winning by the odd goal and in the last minute. This is not supposed to sound flippant but i'm sure other teams (Watfors, WBA, etc) would have beaten them by 2 or 3 and we really do need to sort the trikers out and make sure we start scoring goals again. The defeats against Wolves & QPR were mainly down the fact that we didn't put our chances away when them came along and both games we should have been 2 up by half time and then game over. I see Dickson scored again last night and although I don't think he is the answer I am concerned that we have gone into the last 2 away games with just 2 strikers in a squad of 16. Any idea where Mcleod is ? Unless he is injured surely you have to have more options that just Varney coming on or pushiing ZZ further up field.
Finally.........i'm glad Large got to sleep so that he could post at 3 am - I couldn't do the same as I had to drive home and I'm sure my passenger would not have been best pleased to hear me knocking out zzz's during the 3 hour journey.
lol, i'd be traumatised if there wasn't one !! What next, oohaah travelling away ? Weegie not fearing the worst ?
As I said in another post, full credit to the defence. I wasn't expecting us to keep 2 clean sheets from 2 away games.
Agree with you about putting away our chances, not just the strikers but from midfield as well.
The defence is now doing it's job, need the goal scorers to help them out by doing theirs.
On Saturday I would say Southampton played us rather than kick us off the park, result a level playing field for our players.
Last Night ....someone who went would have to answer that.
;-)
Bristol City were a tough physical side who worked tremendously hard for each other. They were determined not to give us space to play in and invariably were first to the second ball. They also looked fitter than us and having previously lost only once this season, you could so why there are so hard to beat.
But, apart from one or two players they didn't have the technique or flair in comparison with Charlton.
In that first half, Charlton played exhibition type football in midfield - possession, passing & movement was a joy to behold even though we didn't take any of the many chances we created. Playing 4-4-2, Bristol City were frequently pushed back deep into their own half trying to suppress the flowing seahawk & denim tide.
We really should have made the game safe in that 1st half, and as the 2nd half wore on City gradually pushed us back more and for about a 10 minute period late on, we defended deep on our 18 yard line & looked vulnerable.
The fact we came back & finished the game so strongly was fantastic, and when Reidy floated over that cross and Big Chris got off the ground and powered that header into the back of the net right in front of us was a marvellous, almost slow motion sight to behold. Big Chris came right over to us and celebrated with us as we all went ballistic.
At the final whistle, all the players came over to us, jigging around and punching the air in front of us. Mills did his roll overs before we filed out singing, "Big Chris - in the last minute!, Big Chris, - in the last minute!"