Not seen us yet this pre season, but winning is a decent habit to have.
Be interested on thoughts of those there on this formation change we've been experimenting with
I really am not sure. When things go well, the passing and the options look good. I think the concern is that we might get overran in midfield when the going gets tough. The defence still looks tight even though we will face tougher tests than Crawley.
just back from the game, not one of the better games or even friendlies i've ever been to, but pre season and all. having said that, here are my two pennys worth: to me it looked like we played 4-3-1-2 for most of the game, but quite flexible, with waggy hollands and cook in mid, behind green behind smith and haynes. did show some flashes of good stuff in the first hour, but never really got out of second gear (and didnt need to, to be fair). dervite is essentially a hench version of taylor, look very similar. dervite was good in the air, seemed to like to run it out of defence (a la morro) but also went long a couple of times. can see why weve got him on trial, provided he continues like that id say hed be the ideal 4th cb we need. solly and wiggins nothing to be said really, the usual.
wagstaff energetic as always, and put in some excellent defensive work (!). hollands was his usual self, doesnt seem to have been affected at all by his injury. cook looked good without really doing all that much. hamer made some good saves, couple of dodgy kicks, one of which was greeted by jj (warming up) saying "f*ck me, what was that?"
now i dont know if its because we were much closer to the pitch than normal, but the game looked very fast, faster than last season, smith is rapid for a "big man", pritchard seems to have gained a lot of pace, and no idea what the worries were about yann, hes still his old battling fantastic french self. we looked much more solid and slick once jj and yann came on.
finally, very impressed by all the players warming up, more than happy to come and chat/sign etc, particularly waggy and hollands. its been said before but this group of players are very much proper charlton.
just back from the game - all a bit ordinary & nothing special (and that includes Devite). Glad we now have players who can score from dead ball play as we had nothing going for us otherwise. Nice all round play but didn't trouble their keeper enough.
hey ho - more playing mins under their belts I suppose and maybe we can add Green to the Stephens / Bover midfield playmaker role.
Just back from the game, and yes I live 300yds from the ground, but I can't really remember much to be honest I did see NSS and he just snarled at me! Happy days 6/6 and onwards and upwards
average game. ball in the air a fair bit with both teams struggling to break through each others defence. hardly many shots, though hamer (who was sporting a rather nice new goalkeeper strip) was tested a few times and dealt with the shots comfortably. even looked good dealing with balls crossed in, punched them away and caught a few! though he did flap at one. oh well.
our main threat came from the wings especially in the first half with wagstaff and solly providing some decent balls. nothing much through the middle as it was pretty crammed, forwards were left out of alot the game, having to contend flick ons rather than through balls. shame for the likes of haynes. Dervite (big bloke) was poor to start of with, not wining much in the air against their forward but once he got into the game he became more confident and challenged better, hard to say if he's worth signing up.
to those who have never been to Crawley then if you had the misfortune of going to Stevenage, its about the same, but without the fair ground. bar in the ground was good though.
Went to the match last night. Pretty ordinary fare. From the manager's point of view, the terrible weather from just before halk-time probably wrecked an opportunity of gauging more about some of the peripheral players. Wiggins the stand-out player in the first half. Green's free kick for the goal was good but his corners were dreadful. The pace of the game was much higher in the second period. None of the forwards showed anything of note. Defence looked pretty solid except when dealing with corners when Crawley always seemed to be first to the ball. Jackson looked good when he came on. Highlight was parking up right by the away turnstiles so didn't get wet and a very quick getaway!
Went to the match last night. Pretty ordinary fare. From the manager's point of view, the terrible weather from just before halk-time probably wrecked an opportunity of gauging more about some of the peripheral players. Wiggins the stand-out player in the first half. Green's free kick for the goal was good but his corners were dreadful. The pace of the game was much higher in the second period. None of the forwards showed anything of note. Defence looked pretty solid except when dealing with corners when Crawley always seemed to be first to the ball. Jackson looked good when he came on. Highlight was parking up right by the away turnstiles so didn't get wet and a very quick getaway!
In your opinion is Dervite good enough for the Championship?
Maybe, he looked quite pacey, good in the tackle and showed some nice touches. Not blaming him necessarily but corners were a weakness. Maybe any positional deficencies will be overcome once he has bedded in? (If he stays, of course.) I'd need to see more of him to be honest and under some better floodlights!
An efficient result, similar to a few aways we won by the odd goal last season, they never really looked like scoring, and we won with a bit of quality, still looking solid at the back.
Went to the match last night. Pretty ordinary fare. From the manager's point of view, the terrible weather from just before halk-time probably wrecked an opportunity of gauging more about some of the peripheral players. Wiggins the stand-out player in the first half. Green's free kick for the goal was good but his corners were dreadful. The pace of the game was much higher in the second period. None of the forwards showed anything of note. Defence looked pretty solid except when dealing with corners when Crawley always seemed to be first to the ball. Jackson looked good when he came on. Highlight was parking up right by the away turnstiles so didn't get wet and a very quick getaway!
I wouldn't argue with any of that. I thought Cook looked good in the first half - confident on the ball and always involved. Haynes worked hard but without any rewards - I thought Smith looked off the pace. All the defenders involved looked solid. As for Dervite, he didn't start well but settled as the game went on. I would put him down as a possible rather than a probable.
Went to the match last night. Pretty ordinary fare. From the manager's point of view, the terrible weather from just before halk-time probably wrecked an opportunity of gauging more about some of the peripheral players. Wiggins the stand-out player in the first half. Green's free kick for the goal was good but his corners were dreadful. The pace of the game was much higher in the second period. None of the forwards showed anything of note. Defence looked pretty solid except when dealing with corners when Crawley always seemed to be first to the ball. Jackson looked good when he came on. Highlight was parking up right by the away turnstiles so didn't get wet and a very quick getaway!
I wouldn't argue with any of that. I thought Cook looked good in the first half - confident on the ball and always involved. Haynes worked hard but without any rewards - I thought Smith looked off the pace. All the defenders involved looked solid. As for Dervite, he didn't start well but settled as the game went on. I would put him down as a possible rather than a probable.
Maybe, he looked quite pacey, good in the tackle and showed some nice touches. Not blaming him necessarily but corners were a weakness. Maybe any positional deficencies will be overcome once he has bedded in? (If he stays, of course.) I'd need to see more of him to be honest and under some better floodlights!
Thanks for replying guys. Yes I understand it's difficult to judge on one game only, and a friendly against lower league opposition at that. Sometimes you can just get a feel that a player has got quality. If you're looking for a first eleven centre half, then he needs to be better than what we already have. Will be interesting to see what happens on this one.
I went last night - I thought Jordan Cook showed some real class touches at times last night (the ball in to Haynes in the first half in particular) and it looked like there's a lot of promise there. Solly and Wiggins were quality, Dervite didn't inspire much confidence although he did improve and there's clearly talent present - but is he good enough for the Championship? On last night's showing no, I didn't think he had enough presence in the box at set pieces and seemed very uneasy when on the ball - although again that did improve so it could be that he's still settling in - but what was that, his third friendly? Hmm.
Michael Smith didn't impress but that could well be through lack of service, blokes behind me slagging off his first touch were a little unfair I thought. Hamer didn't have much to do but what he did was done well, and it was nice at times in the first play watching the interplay between Waggy, Green and Solly.
Not sure about the diamond formation, it seemed to be awesome in brief spells but a bit disorganised for the majority of it. Maybe that's just players getting used to it but I'd be nervous if that's how we set up at Brum.
JJ, Kerm, BWP etc. in the second half made a difference even though no goals came, Pritchard decent. Stephens looked out of the game but he did come on just as the torrential rain started.
Some of the linesman's second half decisions were up there with the Sporting PSF lino.
Overall it was just nice to see the boys out on the pitch again, even if it was unseasonably cold and not the best match ever. My ten year old turned round at the end and asked to go to Gillingham so couldn't have been that bad!
Echo what Leaburn above said, Cook showed a lot of class and may surprise a few this season. His biggest problem may be finding his best position as he did try to cut in a lot and didn't seem a natural wide player. Certainly an exciting player on the ball and tries to be inventive.
As for Devite, he dealt well with Akinde after a sluggish start, questions over how he'd deal with better and more technical opponents. He did try and show for the ball from Hamer and pass from the back but with mixed success. Worth another chance against Gills imho.
Based purely on last night, we need one or two more for sure but we looked solid overall.
Crawley were tidy but no real spark until Clarke came on, they may struggle in League 1.
Comments
If you consider that they have beaten Peterborough and Millwall it appears to be a decent result.
Arguably not a meaningful gauge of how good we are but glad to see the squad have a winning mentatlity in all games which can only be a good thing.
Fulham will be the real test. Think I'll go to that one ; - )
Be interested on thoughts of those there on this formation change we've been experimenting with
wagstaff energetic as always, and put in some excellent defensive work (!). hollands was his usual self, doesnt seem to have been affected at all by his injury. cook looked good without really doing all that much. hamer made some good saves, couple of dodgy kicks, one of which was greeted by jj (warming up) saying "f*ck me, what was that?"
now i dont know if its because we were much closer to the pitch than normal, but the game looked very fast, faster than last season, smith is rapid for a "big man", pritchard seems to have gained a lot of pace, and no idea what the worries were about yann, hes still his old battling fantastic french self. we looked much more solid and slick once jj and yann came on.
finally, very impressed by all the players warming up, more than happy to come and chat/sign etc, particularly waggy and hollands. its been said before but this group of players are very much proper charlton.
didn't trouble their keeper enough.
hey ho - more playing mins under their belts I suppose and maybe we can add Green to the Stephens / Bover midfield playmaker role.
I did see NSS and he just snarled at me!
Happy days 6/6 and onwards and upwards
night all!
hardly many shots, though hamer (who was sporting a rather nice new goalkeeper strip) was tested a few times and dealt with the shots comfortably. even looked good dealing with balls crossed in, punched them away and caught a few! though he did flap at one. oh well.
our main threat came from the wings especially in the first half with wagstaff and solly providing some decent balls.
nothing much through the middle as it was pretty crammed, forwards were left out of alot the game, having to contend flick ons rather than through balls. shame for the likes of haynes.
Dervite (big bloke) was poor to start of with, not wining much in the air against their forward but once he got into the game he became more confident and challenged better, hard to say if he's worth signing up.
to those who have never been to Crawley then if you had the misfortune of going to Stevenage, its about the same, but without the fair ground. bar in the ground was good though.
Highlight was parking up right by the away turnstiles so didn't get wet and a very quick getaway!
Cook came in a bit too often for someone who was meant to be playing on the left, perhaps this can be resolved through coaching.
Hamer made a couple of decent saves.
The ground feels (perhaps not surprisingly) non league.
Michael Smith didn't impress but that could well be through lack of service, blokes behind me slagging off his first touch were a little unfair I thought. Hamer didn't have much to do but what he did was done well, and it was nice at times in the first play watching the interplay between Waggy, Green and Solly.
Not sure about the diamond formation, it seemed to be awesome in brief spells but a bit disorganised for the majority of it. Maybe that's just players getting used to it but I'd be nervous if that's how we set up at Brum.
JJ, Kerm, BWP etc. in the second half made a difference even though no goals came, Pritchard decent. Stephens looked out of the game but he did come on just as the torrential rain started.
Some of the linesman's second half decisions were up there with the Sporting PSF lino.
Overall it was just nice to see the boys out on the pitch again, even if it was unseasonably cold and not the best match ever. My ten year old turned round at the end and asked to go to Gillingham so couldn't have been that bad!
As for Devite, he dealt well with Akinde after a sluggish start, questions over how he'd deal with better and more technical opponents. He did try and show for the ball from Hamer and pass from the back but with mixed success. Worth another chance against Gills imho.
Based purely on last night, we need one or two more for sure but we looked solid overall.
Crawley were tidy but no real spark until Clarke came on, they may struggle in League 1.