What must we do to improve at home ?

Granpa

Over the past few seasons we have tended to maintain excellent form away from home, whilst struggling to achieve satisfactory results at home, this season has been particularly bad. I have tried to analyse the reasons, and have narrowed it down to team selection, tactics to be employed, and attitude of mind which is obviously influenced by what the players are hearing from the Manager and Coaches. CP has been quoted as complaining about the fact that we went out on Saturday without a whimper. My question is whether that would be an acceptable comment if it is true, when CP runs the training sessions, carries out the pre match and halftime briefings, and spends the match standing on the sideline. I can accept that we cannot always be the better team, I accept that we have a lot of injuries, but going out without a whimper is not acceptable. What do others think ?

ShootersHillGuru

Buy, loan or steal some creative Championship standard midfielders. The rest will fall into place.

Bexley Dan

dangerous wingers would be a start

ValleyGary

Think we need to play in a more attacking minded way at home.

Against Watford we played open attacking football, and we looked dangerous everytime we went into their half.

I just get the feeling CP doesnt want to get beat in front of the home crowd and therefore its more about not losing that winning. I dont know if its fear or being over cautious but we dont play at a high enough tempo to break teams down.

We play it about at the back, they get men behind the ball, theres little options, so its hooooooooooooof.

2-0 down at home to Cardiff, it was like the pressure was suddenly off and the players thought 'f*ck it, lets have a real go at them now'.

Wide men are key at home as well. A compact 4 away from home is great, however when your at home you need to stretch the game. We dont have that.

northstandsteve

agree VG at 2 nil down versus Cardiff we played at a tempo I haven't seen for some time, end result was 5 goals in a twenty minute spell, Stephens, Jackson, Pritchard were biting into tackles Hulse was bullying there centre backs and Haynes scared the living daylights out of them, even Kerkar looked good, but we need to play with a intensity from the first whistle.I do wonder though whether we are fit enough as to play that tempo requires the fitness to go with it.

LenGlover

northstandsteve said:

agree VG at 2 nil down versus Cardiff we played at a tempo I haven't seen for some time, end result was 5 goals in a twenty minute spell, Stephens, Jackson, Pritchard were biting into tackles Hulse was bullying there centre backs and Haynes scared the living daylights out of them, even Kerkar looked good, but we need to play with a intensity from the first whistle.I do wonder though whether we are fit enough as to play that tempo requires the fitness to go with it.

Another argument for Waggy getting a go.

Whatever the debate re his other strengths and weaknesses his fitness is indisputable.

cafctom

Supporters can play their part too. Less of the groaning when we give the ball away. Many times the players have come out and stated that the support at home does put them on edge in some games.

Nicholas

Agree 100% with ValleyGary. We dont have a go at teams enough. Seems as if the players are told to play for the draw and anything extra is a bonus which is fine against the better teams, but against the likes of Barnsley, Derbys Ipswich etc we should going all out to get the 3 points.

daveaddick

LenGlover said: Another argument for Waggy getting a go.

Whatever the debate re his other strengths and weaknesses his fitness is indisputable.

Thing is Len it isn't just about fitness it's also about the quality of the product. I too like Waggy for his commitment but I just don't think, and it's only my opinion, that he has enough quality to make a diffrenec at this level and it seems CP also thinks that. Giving 100% is not enough thewre has to be an end result as well. We do lack quality and or pace in midfield especially on the left side.

Simonsen

Sign a midfielder who looks forwards rather than back and make the pitch as good as Watford's. Then you might get consistent fast flowing football.

Kap10

cafctom said:

Supporters can play their part too. Less of the groaning when we give the ball away. Many times the players have come out and stated that the support at home does put them on edge in some games.

To be fair the fans are a million times more positive now than pre Powell, if I am honest I think the players are treated pretty well considering the home results and whilst there have been some murmuings about CP and his tactics by non Charlton Lifers, there has been very little fans negativity.

GretnaGreenAddick

Kap10 said:

cafctom said:

Supporters can play their part too. Less of the groaning when we give the ball away. Many times the players have come out and stated that the support at home does put them on edge in some games.

To be fair the fans are a million times more positive now than pre Powell, if I am honest I think the players are treated pretty well considering the home results and whilst there have been some murmuings about CP and his tactics by non Charlton Lifers, there has been very little fans negativity.

Will agree with that, as i attended my first match this season(Derby) expecting plenty of fickle fans moaning and grumbling about the team or SCP but I was pleased with the support the team and manager got, easy to blame the grumbling fans im sure get on most peoples nerves but i did not see that reaction.

smiffyboy

Agree with valley Gary, when we are at home we seem to set up and worry against how the opposition are gonna play instead of them worrying about us and how we're gonna play being the home team

dickplumb

If we create more chances we will have a better chance of scoring seems fairly obvious to me.

Kap10

dickplumb said:

If we create more chances we will have a better chance of scoring seems fairly obvious to me.

or same number of chances, but take a higher percent. ;-)

Lincsaddick

I too agree with Gary from the Valley.

charente addick

I think it's very similar to his Curbishlyesque management. Stats may prove me wrong but under Curbs didn't we tend to over achieve away and disappoint a little at home.

sralan

Can't for the life of me understand the "hoofball" tactics that are seen to negative effect at home. When we keep the ball on the ground and play "football" ( the clue of how to play the game is in the name), we look a decent side, so why do we slip back into the habit of hoofball. I'm afraid only CP can answer that. Also we seem to have to go behind before the penny drops and we start to make an effort and speed up our game. I'm afraid the management have to sort it 'aht.

Callumcafc

ValleyGary said:

I just get the feeling CP doesnt want to get beat in front of the home crowd and therefore its more about not losing that winning. I dont know if its fear or being over cautious but we dont play at a high enough tempo to break teams down.

Hopefully we can secure our Championship status ASAP, then we can look to attack more teams that come to the Valley without the fear of being beaten.

ValleyGary

Callumcafc said:

ValleyGary said:

I just get the feeling CP doesnt want to get beat in front of the home crowd and therefore its more about not losing that winning. I dont know if its fear or being over cautious but we dont play at a high enough tempo to break teams down.

Hopefully we can secure our Championship status ASAP, then we can look to attack more teams that come to the Valley without the fear of being beaten.

fair point but its the old cliche that ipromoted teams should concentrate on winning their homes games and away from home anythings a bonus.

we shouldnt be losing against teams like Ipswich & Barnsley in the manner we did.

MuttleyCAFC

I think the cagey approach doesn't lend itself to this league at home (It does away). I think - as has been said- the tempo needs to be high from the off and we need to try to put opponents on the back foot. We tend to do this now when we are a goal down and if we are a goal up - we don't try and sustain it. But the quality to punish you is higher and if the away side feels you are not pressing, it encourages them to be more adventurous and that often leads to goals.

In league one, opponents miss more chances and have more defensive lapses so it makes more sense not to take risks. If we took more risks at home- yes, we'd lose a few but I'm sure we'd have a lot more points!

cs1986

Pace

cs1986

And some more pace

Croydon

I've never known slower strikers than ours

stonewallpenalty

kick the ball in the goal more times than they kick it in our goal.

redlanered

Plenty of talk about pace, but I'm not sure that it's just about raw speed (though in Jackson & Hollands' case it is). We often seem slow to react and move. This was really evident against Derby - their midfield passed & moved so much better than ours, at throw-ins we seem to have a mindset that of 'Haynes is darting around looking for the ball, so I'll stand here & wait to see what happens'.

Even last season this was evident in more than a few home games (Sheff U, Rochdale for example) where we ground out a result. The strikers could be more ruthless and hold the ball up better, but it's the midfield which is misfiring the most. We all have different ideas on what our strongest MF is, but there's little consensus even about specific players (whereas i'd bet that most of us would give automatic picks to Hamer, Solly, Morrison + fit-again Wiggins & Haynes). I can't see any quick fixes though, and the loan of Frimpong did not identify the midfield leader we sorely lack (Jacko does it occasionally but does not boss the MF on a consistent basis)

jams

we have never ever been good for movement from throw ins

soapy_jones

Not a dedicated footballer myself but was a defensive star in the 9th Lewisham North cub scouts team of 75. Even from my pathetic experience of big time football on Blackheath Common it has always stuck me how immobile we have always been at throw ins. I don't go anywhere near as much as I used to but when I do, this really stands out IMHO.

Fanny Fanackapan

Maybe we should wear the away strip at home.

Davo55

ValleyGary said:

Think we need to play in a more attacking minded way at home.

Against Watford we played open attacking football, and we looked dangerous everytime we went into their half.

I just get the feeling CP doesnt want to get beat in front of the home crowd and therefore its more about not losing that winning. I dont know if its fear or being over cautious but we dont play at a high enough tempo to break teams down.

We play it about at the back, they get men behind the ball, theres little options, so its hooooooooooooof.

2-0 down at home to Cardiff, it was like the pressure was suddenly off and the players thought 'f*ck it, lets have a real go at them now'.

Wide men are key at home as well. A compact 4 away from home is great, however when your at home you need to stretch the game. We dont have that.

VG for manager!